More Italian wine resorts
It felt like entering a Bond villain's lair. We followed Viviana Pitino of the Buonivini estate through a door deep in the hillside into a cavernous hi-tech space. Inside was a sleek, modern winery lined with stainless steel tanks and smelling strongly of grapes. Deeper underground was the barrel room, where plans were being laid for, if not world domination, a serious assault on the global wine market: row upon row of oak barrels were slowly turning that grape juice into some of Sicily's finest wines. "Welcome to our invisible winery," said Viviana.
The contrast with what lay outside and above was startling. We'd arrived at sunset, through what looked like the set of a spaghetti western, all parched hills and ruined houses. This area, on the southernmost tip of Italy, has been called Buonivini (the name good wines says it all) from time immemorial, but lay unloved until a few years ago, when it was acquired by the Planeta family, leaders in Sicily's wine renaissance.
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