COS

COS was founded in 1980 by three school friends — Giambattista Cilia, Cirino Strano, and Giusto Occhipinti — who pooled their resources to lease a piece of land in the Ragusa province of southeastern Sicily and make wine without knowing quite what they were doing. What they discovered, over the following forty years, was that the Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG — Sicily's only DOCG — and its two permitted varieties, Nero d'Avola and Frappato, were capable of wines of genuine complexity and longevity.

The estate converted to certified organic and biodynamic farming under ICEA and began using clay amphora for fermentation in the early 2000s — a choice influenced by the same Georgian winemaking tradition that shaped Gravner's practice in Friuli. The amphora work at COS is not imitation; it is a considered response to the question of how to preserve the aromatic detail of Frappato, a grape that oxidises easily in conventional vessels.

The Rami and Pithos wines have drawn 95 points from Wine Advocate and represent a style of Sicilian red wine that has no direct equivalent elsewhere in Italy. The Cerasuolo di Vittoria Classico is the more structured expression of the same farming philosophy.

COS has influenced the next generation of Sicilian producers more than almost any other estate, which is the most durable form of recognition available in wine.