Azienda Agricola Battaglia Graziella

The story

Thirty-eight years before the first bottle

Vincenzo and Graziella Battaglia bought their first parcel of land in Chiaramonte Gulfi in 1972, the first year of their marriage. The family farmed it. For 38 years grapes left the property in bulk, nothing labelled, nothing bottled under the Battaglia name. Then in 2010 Giovanni and Angela, who had grown up watching their parents work those calcareous hillside plots, relaunched the estate commercially under the name Gurrieri and produced the first release. The wines that came out of that first vintage were built on the same nine hectares Vincenzo and Graziella had planted. The land existed for four decades before anyone decided to put a label on what it grew.

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Gurrieri (Azienda Agricola Battaglia Graziella)

At A Glance

The Producer

The family label is Gurrieri. The estate behind it is Azienda Agricola Battaglia Graziella, nine hectares of organically farmed vineyards on calcareous hillsides in Chiaramonte Gulfi, in the Ragusa Province of southeastern Sicily. Vincenzo and Graziella Battaglia planted and tended those parcels for nearly four decades before their children Giovanni and Angela produced the first commercial release in 2010.

The wines carry native Sicilian grapes: Nero d'Avola and Frappato for reds, Grillo for whites, with Syrah as the single international variety. The estate's most important bottle is the Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG blend, a 55 percent Nero d'Avola and 45 percent Frappato wine from Sicily's only DOCG zone, a classification that requires exactly this pairing of the island's two most planted red varieties.

Production is deliberately small. Each cuvée runs to roughly 3,000 bottles.

Place

Chiaramonte Gulfi sits at the northeastern edge of Ragusa Province, on a ridge in the Iblean plateau country of southeastern Sicily. The town rises between 260 and 300 metres above sea level, high enough that summer heat breaks at night and the growing season runs cooler than the island's lower coastal zones. That altitude difference shows in the wines: freshness, acidity, and aromatic lift across the range rather than the heavy fruit and high alcohol more typical of Sicilian lowlands.

The soils are calcareous, limestone-derived and well-draining. They hold warmth without waterlogging and push vines toward deep root systems, producing grapes with mineral character and natural acidity.

The Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG takes its name from the town of Vittoria, southwest of Chiaramonte Gulfi, and covers a zone spanning parts of Ragusa and Caltanissetta provinces. It is Sicily's only DOCG, a designation that mandates a blend of Nero d'Avola and Frappato at a minimum 50 percent Nero d'Avola. The classification exists because the combination of these two varieties in this territory produces a wine style found nowhere else on the island: a medium-weight red with dark fruit grip and floral lift in the same glass.

Soil And Site

The nine hectares divide across three communes: five hectares in Chiaramonte Gulfi, three in Comiso, and one in Mazzarrone. All three sit within the Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG zone. Calcareous soils across these parcels drain freely and warm quickly in spring, encouraging early budbreak but preventing the excessive heat retention that strips acidity from fruit before harvest. Annual rainfall is limited, and the estate uses drip irrigation alongside organic soil management. Hand-harvesting takes place in two passes per plot, picking fruit as it reaches optimal ripeness rather than clearing each parcel in a single sweep.

Story

Vincenzo and Graziella Battaglia bought their first Sicilian vineyard in 1972, the year they married. For the following 38 years the family farmed grapes without bottling wine under their name. Fruit left the property in bulk. The land was worked, the vines were tended, but nothing came back as a labelled bottle.

In 2010 Giovanni and Angela, the second generation, changed that. They relaunched the estate commercially under the Gurrieri name, drew up a range built on the native varieties their parents had always grown, and produced the first release. The parcels Vincenzo and Graziella had planted across four decades became the vineyard base for a bottled wine project committed to organic farming and the Cerasuolo di Vittoria appellation.

The Gurrieri name and the 2010 relaunch represent a deliberate choice to stay within Sicilian variety territory: Nero d'Avola, Frappato, Grillo, and Moscato, with Syrah the only concession to international grape fashion.

Vineyards And Cellar

Organic farming across all nine hectares means no synthetic herbicides or pesticides. Soil management is active: organic matter is returned to the earth and drip irrigation supplements the limited annual rainfall without overwatering. Harvesting in two passes through each plot selects fruit at different ripeness windows, which gives the cellar cleaner, more consistent raw material per variety.

In the cellar, temperature-controlled fermentation preserves aromatic freshness in all the wines. Reds go through longer maceration periods, extracting colour and tannin without over-drying the fruit, then through malolactic fermentation to soften acidity. Ageing is in wooden barrels for wines that benefit from oxygen exposure, stainless steel for those where freshness is the priority. The Grillo, with its citrus and green apple profile, goes into steel. The Cerasuolo di Vittoria blend, which requires more development, sees wood.

Wines

Grillo is the white wine: a single-variety bottle from the native Sicilian grape grown on calcareous soils at altitude. It opens with citrus peel and green apple, carries herbal notes through the mid-palate, and finishes with the bright, saline acidity the variety produces at this elevation. No oak, no heaviness. It is a wine for the table.

Fragpato is vinified as a varietal red, and the variety's character dominates: floral on the nose, pomegranate and berry fruit in the mouth, with tea-leaf and spice trailing into the finish. The tannins are light. The colour is pale for a red, almost translucent at the edge.

Nero d'Avola as a single-variety red is a different wine altogether: fuller in body, meaty in texture, with dark berry fruit, a thread of licorice, and firm tannin from the longer maceration. The tea-leaf note connects it to the Frappato, but the weight and extraction are in another register.

Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG is the estate's primary blend: 55 percent Nero d'Avola to 45 percent Frappato. Nero d'Avola carries the frame, dark fruit, grip, and body; Frappato supplies floral, berry, pomegranate, spice, and tea-leaf notes. The two varieties in this ratio produce a mid-weight red with range: dark and structured enough to sit beside food, fresh and aromatic enough to drink without it.

In The Glass

Across the range, altitude and calcareous soils produce a consistent signature: freshness and aromatic definition rather than extract and weight. The Grillo opens with citrus and herbal lift, stays vivid through the palate, and closes clean. The Frappato arrives florally, with pomegranate and berry fruit carrying through to a spiced, tea-edged finish on light tannins. The Nero d'Avola is denser: dark fruit, licorice, and firmer grip from the extended maceration, with the tea-leaf note that runs through the red wines here.

The Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG blend pulls the two red varieties together. On the nose it offers the floral and berry character of Frappato over a darker fruit base from Nero d'Avola. In the mouth the Nero d'Avola tannin and body set the frame; the Frappato keeps the wine from closing down, adding brightness and aromatic length. The finish is medium, with fruit and a trace of spice.

A Bottle To Understand It

Begin with the Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG. It is the bottle that carries both grapes, explains the appellation, and shows what the calcareous hillsides of Chiaramonte Gulfi do to a Sicilian red. The blend at Gurrieri is 55 percent Nero d'Avola to 45 percent Frappato: dark berry, firm grip, and meaty mid-palate from the Nero d'Avola; floral lift, pomegranate brightness, and a spiced tea finish from the Frappato. The two varieties are not similar enough to cancel each other out. Each holds its character in the glass, and the appellation exists because that combination produces something neither grape achieves alone. Start here.

Anecdote

Vincenzo and Graziella Battaglia bought their first parcel of land in Chiaramonte Gulfi in 1972, the first year of their marriage. The family farmed it. For 38 years grapes left the property in bulk, nothing labelled, nothing bottled under the Battaglia name. Then in 2010 Giovanni and Angela, who had grown up watching their parents work those calcareous hillside plots, relaunched the estate commercially under the name Gurrieri and produced the first release. The wines that came out of that first vintage were built on the same nine hectares Vincenzo and Graziella had planted. The land existed for four decades before anyone decided to put a label on what it grew.

Final Word

Gurrieri is a small organic estate making native-variety Sicilian wines from well-placed calcareous hillsides inside Sicily's only DOCG zone. The Cerasuolo di Vittoria blend is the wine to seek first: it carries the estate's two red grapes, the appellation's legal logic, and the freshness that altitude and limestone lend to every bottle in the range.

Sources

• https://www.gurrieri.net/en/
• http://omwines.com/gurierri
• https://www.winedering.com/winery-gurrieri_d5454