The avenue to enter from Pupillo Cellars, in Targia, a few kilometers from Syracuse, immediately immerses you in a bucolic, ancient context. It’s as if time stops. The still consecrated church on one side, the castle, the gardens and all the vineyards around. It is almost difficult to believe that fires almost completely devastated the estate and surrounding areas last summer. Yet it is reality and it is the first thing that Carmela Pupillo, owner of the company together with her brother Sebastiano, tells us as soon as she sees us.
“The 2023 production has completely halved due to the fires and it is absurd that the attention of the institutions turns to the problem only when it is evident”. His father Nino was the one who rediscovered a vineyard in the south-eastern area of Sicily, who studied it and experimented: here the Moscato di Siracusa. The same vineyard that was partially destroyed by the fires.
“The company – Carmela tells us again as she shows us her “home” – has given itself the mission of placing greater emphasis on the protection of the territory and the agricultural landscape. Our cellars are ambassadors of food and wine and for this reason we are bastions of legality, of protection of biodiversity and we must ensure that our institutions focus attention on the issue”.
He remembers it well on July 25, 2023, when flames engulfed the crag of the Dionysian Walls but also part of its land. After a year the company has not stopped and always puts Moscato di Siracusa at the center of its work. Nino Pupillo, his father, dedicated more than twenty years to the project. A wine that manages to express finesse and which 100% represents the place where it was born. Moscato di Siracusa is in fact one of the first DOCs established and the cultivation of vines in this area has been documented since ancient times. But production had been lost because the city had had a more citrus but also industrial vocation.
Not just Moscato di Siracusa: today Cantine Pupillo in its 100 hectares of property and in the 16 hectares of vineyards also produces Nero d’Avola and Catarratto among the calcareous and volcanic soils. “What’s new this year – says Pupillo – is the production of sparkling wines but in 2023 due to the fire I was unable to produce them. In 2022 we produced the first Nero d’Avola vinified rosé on volcanic soil and also a sparkling Moscato base”.
Fires on one side and climate change on the other, which we have to deal with. The dry year has caused the loss of many millimetres and producers are all in check by drought. Especially in an area like that of Syracuse where in summer temperatures touch 47 degrees. “We are on a trench front and we will not let ourselves be defeated by the climatic conditions. The abandonment of the agricultural landscape is different and there is a need for institutional intervention”.
In Targia, in the Pupillo winery, everything is also staked on wine tourism. The place allows it for the magic it releases. Where the nuns once lived, today rooms overlooking the vineyards have been created. They still retain that sort of antiquity that makes them unique. And to the tasting, guests can add a visit to the estate, where the Femminello Siracusano lemon and oil are also produced.
Carmela Pupillo puts his whole soul in the company. After graduating in Literature and Philosophy she returned home and was struck by lightning, in love with the winery. And today the results can be seen among the passion and beauty of uncontaminated and pure places.
