USATT 2018 Exhibitor Story : Azienda Agricola Spadafora
About Azienda Agricola Spadafora
Spadafora is a noble Sicilian family whose first certified traces date back to 1230. Over the centuries the house has held five principalities, a duchy, two marquisates, an earldom and twenty-five baronages. Some family members have occupied prominent positions in the Kingdom of Sicily and in some European countries.
The founder of the company, Azienda Agricola Spadafora, is Don Pietro dei Principi di Spadafora, who inherited the estate from his uncle, Michele De Stefani, a talented farmer and breeder of racehorses.
The estate suffered a lot of damage during the 1968 earthquake but Don Pietro committed himself to the reconstruction and redevelopment of the vineyard, reappraising the native grape varieties and introducing non-native varieties to Sicily for the creation of quality wines. The current owner is Francesco Spadafora, son of Don Pedro.

The history of Spadafora bottled wine began almost twenty years ago, in the summer of 1988, when Francesco Spadafora’s father decided it would be better to explore another world, to see how it was, so from their land in Mussomeli, a family-owned property in inland Sicilian, where he grew wheat, he moved to Virzì to take care of the vineyards and make wine from the grapes. He immediately became passionate about it, thinking about what his father would like and what he wanted.
After tasting and testing, he decided in 1993 that he would only produce wine from grapes grown on this land, and he produced their first bottle, which he naturally named after his father: Don Pietro.

Azienda Agricola Spadafora‘s Vineyards
The grapes grown on the estate are harvested by hand and arrive in the winery in small, six hundredweight trucks, within about ten or fifteen minutes after cutting, in order to be processed immediately.
Harvesting of the white grapes, Chardonnay, Inzolia, Catarratto and Grillo, starts at around six o’clock in the morning so as to reach a temperature of around 17°C. The grapes are grown at a height varying between 220 and 400 meters above sea level and, under normal conditions, are subject to a temperature variation of 10–15°C, between day and night.
The white grapes are then stripped, using a rotating eccentric screw pump, and drop into a heat exchanger, which further lowers the temperature by 10–15°C, and finally, arrive in a pneumatic press.
For more, visit USATT Blog.
