Musìta Winery

[moo-see-TAH]

Location: Salemi, Province of Trapani, Sicily, Italy

Musita was founded in the late 1800s by Don Ignazia in Salmei. Today the winery is now in its fifth-generation and has 125 acres under vine.

Points of Differentiation

• The winery is now in it’s fifth-generation
• 100% Family run
• Hot, dry climate produces grapes with excellent aromatics
• Slope of the vineyards allows grapes to ripen evenly with body and structure

The History

Set against the Musìta hillside, in the district of Salemi, heart of the Belice Valley, is a winery founded by Don Ignazio Ardagna, five generations ago. Those were the late 1800s and Don Ignazio planted his first, tiny vineyard on the Musìta slopes – native, bush-trained Catarratto whose golden fruit would lead to further goals and to a dream come true.

Ignazio’s son Domenico, then his grandson Giuseppe, in turn, cultivated this gorgeous land, though at first, they poured their fruit into the local cooperative. Giuseppe Ardagna, however, was not content with the cooperative’s good wines. He dreamed that his children and grandchildren would one day tell the story of Musìta as Ignazio had meant it to be told; expressing the hill’s tremendous quality potential to its full extent.

Today, Ignazio and Giuseppe’s aspirations have been realized: the family has not only purchased the hillside winery that at one time belonged to the cooperative; they have also renovated and extended it, all the while expanding total Ardagna acreage under vine to nearly 125 acres (50 hectares).

The estate is entirely family-run and every stage of the process is supervised by expert agronomists and enologists.

The Musìta mission is to showcase the unique qualities of their terroir.

The Terroir

The vineyards are partly located on the Musìta hill itself and partly located in other hilly locations around Salemi, at varying altitudes, some as high as 1,640 feet above sea level. Besides the variety first planted by Don Ignazio (Catarratto), the vines are comprised of Grillo, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Nero d’Avola and Merlot.

The soils in the Baronia Vineyard, which produce Musita’s Cabernet and Chardonnay, are clayey and calcareous which provide body and structure to the grapes. The climate is dry and hot in the summer which helps ripen the grapes and build excellent aromatics. While the vineyard sits at 980-1,300 feet above sea level, only the lower half is employed for growing Cabernet Sauvignon. In contrast, Musita’s Chardonnay grapes are planted on the upper half of the vineyard.