I arrived in Sicily in 2012. I am originally from the Canary Islands. First I studied agricultural engineering and after I studied enology. When I was working in the Canary Islands with my parents and my grandfather we were making wine, bulk wine. One time when I was studying enology my friend, the producer Roberto Santana from Envinate, recommended I come to Sicily, to the Occhipinti area. I stayed here in one vintage in 2012 and I met Etna.

Since that year I wanted to come and make a vintage in Etna to learn the terroir, to learn the varieties and find some common points between the Canary Islands and Etna which are both volcanic. And so in 2013 I was looking for a winery where I could make some vintages. Franchetti, the company Passopisciaro di Vini Franchetti, offered me to be an enologist in 2013. I started to look for vines to cultivate and know a little bit more. With him I have learned many things about the contrade, different vineyards, and that is the reason why I am here.

I think the thing that made me come here to Etna is the volcano, that it is currently an active volcano. The soil. The possibility to cultivate in high altitudes and small parcels.

For example going from 500 meters to 1,000 meters, that can take usually ten or twenty minutes in a car, and you can see the differences that we find in the different zones in Etna. When you go to different areas you find different microclimates, change of climate and change of rain, change of wind, change of many things.

And me personally I like the idea to have all these vineyards that I work in different zones, because every vineyard conveys a different idea. In other zones where the territory is larger, much bigger, you don’t find these differences.

In Etna, many people from abroad come to visit. Etna is a place where people come to visit in the Mediterranean; there is the sea, there is the sun, there is the beautiful temperature. And this particular part of Sicily has the volcano. I think the winemakers Frank Cornelissen, Marco de Grazia, Franchetti, they are not originally from Sicily. It was around 2001. It was a zone that was very distressed.

But there was no movement here, the terroir was abandoned because in general there was no value for the grapes. So when they arrived, people who are from the wine world, they found the type of soil and the different varieties from here that are autonomous varieties, they are old vines, and a traditional system of growing. They fell in love with this place, like I did when I arrived in 2012 on Etna. Very fast I wanted to come and make wine.