Behind the vine

Marilina Paternò - Cantina Marilina - Sicily, Italy

When do you think you fell in love with wine, enough to make a career of it?

My father has been an oenologist since he was 18 and has worked for many wineries in Italy, especially in Sicily. He always took me with him and involved in his work. I remember when I was young my father had me taste during harvest and that’s when wine entered my veins for the choices of my future. The taste of the fresh red must, with an unforgettable sweetness and aromas.

I have always found myself in the midst of the vineyards, the grapes, the wonderful smells of the harvest so wine has always been part of me and of my life. There was not a moment when I decided, it is a path that I have always traveled.

What story does your wine tell?

It tells the story of a family that has dedicated everything to the land. Our wines tell the passion of each of us.

It tells of a father who passed on all his knowledge and experience to his daughters and tells the story of a choice and of falling in love a few years ago, after several searches in Sicily, with this warm land, in the extreme south of Sicily. A white land, full of light and wild. We are located further south of Tunis, and we call ourselves North Africa. The temperatures, the pedoclimatic conditions are unique and very different from the rest of Sicily.

What misconceptions about wine do you think people should forget?

We should all move away from what they have taught us so far: "a wine must be this color .. and it must be this way .." This is an old concept. The wines represent the territory where they come from. There are no established preconceptions or patterns. Each wine has its own history, its own smells and its own flavors.

When we drink a glass of wine, no one can or should tell us what we hear or see in that glass, we just have to let ourselves be guided by our sensations and emotions. There is no color or smell that identifies a wine, there is a territory, there are people who live together with the vine and accompany it until it becomes wine.

What great things about wine do you think people should remember?

It would be nice to remember the people behind it, the working hands, the idea of the producer.

For us, each wine is a child, with its own personality and identity.

It would be nice to remember the land they come from, the heat of the sun and the strength of the wind. And then in the end what remains inside you is the emotion that arouses at the first or second sip.

What is a piece of advice you would give to a woman interested in breaking into the wine world?

To indulge in curiosity, the desire to know, to know. To break every pattern.

We women are very sensitive and attentive, this helps us to face everything with strength and determination. Wine and woman are the perfect union.

Who is a woman that inspired you?

Madame Leroy, una donna che è già storia.

Where can women find your wine?

All over the world: From the United States to Canada to Peru, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea, England, Ireland, Switzerland and the other northern European countries. And obviously in Italy.

Get in touch directly here.