ALWAYS CONTEMPORARYTHE BENANTI FAMILY
An innovative vision with the goal of producing excellent wines: this is the Benanti credo, a long-etsablished family with Bolognese origins that boasts a centuries-old history. The Sicilian branch of the Benanti family was born in 1734, when a descendant was sent to Sicily by Vittorio Amedeo d’Aosta. At the end of the nineteenth century Giuseppe Benanti began producing wine from local Etna grapes. Since those first vintages, generations of our family have been in love with making wine on the volcano, and we have transformed a passion into mastery for enhancing the peculiarities of indigenous vines in a territory that is indomitable and diverse. The research and creation of authentic wines, capable of celebrating the Etna terroir in its various expressions, have become a distinctive feature of our production.
The Benanti family has been instrumental in Etna’s viticulture throughout history, contributing first hand to its evolution. Now managed by Giuseppe Benanti’s two sons, Antonio and Salvino Benanti, the winery has an annual production of about 170,000 bottles that are distributed throughout the most important markets worldwide.
1988
Inspired by the ambition to achieve quality standards of absolute excellence in the Etna area, fostering the indigenous varieties, Giuseppe Benanti founded the current winery with the name “Tenuta di Castiglione”. He formed authoritative collaborations with Prof. Rocco Di Stefano of the Experimental Institute for Oenology in Asti, Prof. Jean Siegrist of the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique of Beaune in Burgundy, and expert winemakers Gian Domenico Negro and Marco Monchiero from the Langhe region in Piedmont, who for many years joined their young Etna counterpart Salvo Foti in the winemaking effort. This important pioneering work established Giuseppe Benanti as the universal precursor of contemporary Etna viticulture.
1998
Ten years after its foundation, and assuming the family name in the early 90s, Benanti becomes the first Etna winery with a presence on every slope of the Etna DOC area. It is a choice that places Benanti among the pioneers who defined growing zones around the volcano.
2010
Benanti completes a comprehensive five-year experiment aimed at selecting indigenous Etna yeasts in the vineyard and cellar. This unprecedented research leads to the isolation and propagation of four proprietary strains, still considered a unique achievement today.
FIND OUT MOREHistory
Pioneers and protagonists in every era of Etna’s winemaking history.
