Azienda Agricola Arianna Occhipinti — Attraction in Vittoria

Our visit was proposed by Iblaresort Hotel in Ragusa, and what a great recommendation it turned out to be. Our English-speaking guide was superb: a grand mixture of knowledge, humour and energy. His enthusiastic really brought the entire process to life for us, and his respect and admiration for Arianna was very obvious - and very endearing. We learnt a lot about the process and got a really deep appreciation for the importance of soil and climate, but also for the vast array of decisions the oenologist needs to make. Arianna Occhipinti is one of the giants in organic winemaking now and it was a real joy to explore her vineyard and winery. We massively recommend this tour, especially with our guide and especially the tasting with the bread, caponata and olives.

HOWEVER: If you arrange for them to ship wine to (for example) the UK, they charge VAT (22%) and then you pay the duties on arrival. Really, for export Occhipinti should look at setting up so that VAT is not payable beacsue it's being exported. This makes the wines extremely expensive. An alternative would be to provide lists of stockists in...

One of our travel to-do things while in Sicily was to visit the Occhipinti winery. My girlfriend and I nowadays almost only drink natural wines back in Denmark, but we are not wine experts, just trying to learn more about the natural wine world.

We were accompanied by Anthonio who arrived 8 months ago to work at the Azienda. He has a long family background producing natural wines and was more knowledgable about agriculture than wine.

We had all in all a splendid visit. We were accompanied by four other girls, so we were six in total. We started with a coffee, then had a walk in the wineyard and continued to the "next "stations" in the production phase. Lastly we spend 30 minutes with a simple, quick bite of bread and tasting of wines.

We asked a lot of questions and Anthonio was SOOOO nice and we learned a lot yesterday. The Azienda is beautiful and we enjoyed it a lot, one of our best experiences on our 3 week Sicily trip.

I haven't even mentioned the wines yet. Its very subjective the whole thing abt natural wines, but we are big Occhipinti...

Our group of three families greatly enjoyed the tour and food (all 5-star worthy). Our guide and host was very knowledgeable and kind. The price quoted for the wine tasting and lunch was very reasonable (although they didn't pour very much wine as part of the tasting). The wine was very good but not at all worth 72 euros/bottle. That's that part that will cause me not to recommend this place to friends (unfortunate because they have a lot going for them). Adding 3 bottles of wine (2 of their wines at 72 euros each and 1 from COS at 27 euros), our cost per person nearly doubled. My advice if you go is to ask about prices beforehand. In 2.5 years of living here in Sicily and visiting all kinds of wineries, only this place and Gulfi have been that sneaky with price gouging. I won't be back. With all the other WONDERFUL wineries in the area that don't price gouge, I'd recommend...