Sclafani County
The town of Sclafani Bagni was founded in the Middle Ages by the powerful Sclafani family, probably on the ruins of a former Byzantine settlement. Though it passed from hand to hand over the centuries by different rulers, the original name has survived to this day. The current area of the city almost perfectly corresponds to the area established in 1996 year of appeal Contea di Sclafani DOC, covering several municipalities in the provinces of Caltanissetta and Agrigento, Sicily.
The geological and climatic conditions in these areas have always been considered exceptionally favorable for the cultivation of grapevines. Nevertheless, for many centuries, feudal agriculture was primarily focused on quantity, effectively inhibited the qualitative development of winemaking in this region.
Only in the seventies of the last century, winemakers who finally became the owners of the land, began to pay more and more attention to the quality of their production. Encouraged by the first positive results, growers introduced a real revolution in their vineyards, which essentially went in two extreme directions. On the one hand, there was an obsessive drive towards everything new (introducing new varieties in these areas, such , like Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Sauvignon, Syrah i Cabernet Sauvignon, or experimental production technologies brought here from northern Italy, including, for example, re-fermentation or carbon maceration in the production of Novello young wines), on the other hand, care for the cleanliness of the old, traditional varieties, which, previously arbitrarily mixed, from then on they undergo a separate vinification process, which makes it possible to extract their characteristic qualities from each grape variety .