The organic Arianna Occhipinti 2020 Sicilia Nero d'Avola Siccagno offers a pretty medley of cherry, dark fruit and a touch of clove. The wine shows background hints of cola, black olive and baked plum. There is a lot of lifted fruit in this wine that leads to a punchy, lively style overall. It is fluid in personality but also lean in texture.

The 2019 Sicilia Nero d'Avola Siccagno (with a black wax capsule) shows red and purple fruits with wild fennel, toasted aniseed and baked eggplant skin. This wine offers an especially transparent interpretation of Sicily's most important native red grape. The grape speaks for itself with sour tones and lots of tangy wild berry. Winemaking is in cement and oak, and 15,000 bottles were released.

This wine is now identified with the Sicilia DOC appellation (promoted up from Terre Siciliane IGT). The Arianna Occhipinti 2018 Sicilia Nero d'Avola Siccagno is a light and brightly colored expression of the grape, with lots of primary fruit presented front and center. Like the others released in this portfolio, there is a hint of some leather and earth, but the underlining fruit is what stands out most. The wine opens elegantly in the glass, and when the jury's back, Siccagno is remembered as a very graceful expression of this mighty Sicilian grape. It ages in Slavonian oak for 22 months. Production is 18,000 bottles, and I recommend a near-term drinking window.

Spotlighting Sicily's most important red grape, the 2016 Nero d'Avola Siccagno offers a beautiful balsam note that transcends all that dark fruit at the core. I came back to this bottle a few hours after I had opened it, and my positive impressions were strongly reinforced. That pretty balsamic character is in line with young Nero d'Avola. Perhaps in less-refined expressions of the grape it comes off clumsily and unbalanced. Instead, this wine has harnessed the most elegant side of the grape with rosemary essence and caper flower.

The 2013 Nero d'Avola Siccagno opens to a dark color and thicker concentration. This is what distinguishes the Nero d'Avola grape from the other favorite varieties in Arianna Occhipinti's exciting portfolio. Also of interest is how this wine presents such authentic aromatic characteristics of dark cherry, balsam herb and black olive. The non-interventionist winemaking style gives plenty of room for varietal expression. This wine promises a steady evolution over the next five years.