Artichoke cultivation covers a surface area of about 600 hectares and is almost all within the municipality of Menfi. This is one of the most suitable areas in Italy for growing artichokes.The speciality of the area is a rather small, purple, thorny artichoke that grows from November to April. Fragrant and tasty, it is wonderful raw but can also be preserved. The edible product has bracts that encase the flower part, which, after removing the hard and tough outer bracts, can be eaten both raw and cooked or preserved in oil.

The artichoke is also used to make liquors. When preparing any dish with artichokes, it is advisable to cut off the heads and remove all of the hardest outer leaves. The heads should then be soaked in salted water with a few lemon slices to destroy the effect of phenols that cause them to turn brown quickly as soon as the bracts are removed. There are many ways to serve them: artichokes preserved in oil or vinegar, artichokes with garlic, fried artichokes, battered artichokes, “a frittedda”, “a viddanedda”, roast artichokes, pan-baked, in a “caponata”, artichoke stew, stuffed artichokes, “ammuttunati” or “abbutunati”, “alla gibillinese”, sweet and sour (aghiru e duci), as a starter, with pasta and fresh ricotta, Judean artichokes.

This red wine, today, can be considered the Prince of Sicilian  varieties. Its cultivation covers an area of 12.000 hectares making it the most spread vine in Sicily. It is greatly appreciated all over the world for being red-berry vine which yields excellent full-bodied wines.

Nero d’Avola is mainly trained into low bushes or vertical trellis and yields grapes with high sugar content making the wine reach 15 % alc./vol.

Thanks to some recent changes in its growing, the sugar content has reduced and the acidity has raised. It is one of the greatest Italian wines when it is vinified separately: it is firmly structured, intense, balanced, warm, suitable for barrel aging.

Nero d’Avola colour is an intense ruby-red, intense, bright, with purplish hues when young, and dark red hues when old. Its taste is complex, with hints of violet and spices (liquorice and cloves), prune, cherry, blackberry, blackcurrant, raspberry and chocolate, leather and tobacco, and many others.

Soil management of a organic vineyard is a key factor to keep the soil healthy and fertile, and ensure a the grapevine good balance for the production of high quality grapes. Soil treatment is a crucial point in agriculture and, consequently, in organic wine growing. We also have to consider that some methods and trials of modern wine growing are useful for organic practices.

They mainly use these practices on new vineyards, where climate is particularly dry and soil very loose. Even in those conditions, tough, they are testing new alternative techniques in being cheaper and more compatible with organic growing, like temporary cover crops, followed by green manures, mulch, or leguminosae.

Cover crops are the most common organic method, adapted to several different aspects like soil and climate interaction, grapevine needs, containment of topsoil erosion, preserving soil fertility. Cover crops can be natural or artificial, can stay for the whole year or for a shorter time, can cover the whole area of the vineyard or just a part of it. In this case cover crops can be used in each  row, away from trunks, or in every other row.

Soil management affects the vineyard ecosystem in fundamental ways to organic growing. You have to consider the biological complexity (macro and microflora); the erosion, mainly in hill vineyards; soil physical, chemical and biological features.

As to grapevine feeding needs, there are not specific problems in organic wine growing. Grapevine, in general, is not very demanding of nutritional elements. We just want to underline that organic methods don’t interfere negatively with vineyard yielding: on the contrary, increasing soil fertility helps microbiological vitality and microelements presence. However, you always have to consider the balance between organic compound and nutrients: you need to promote the supply of pruning waste.