Tenuta La Favola

In the early 1800’s Giuseppe Di Natale, a native from Siracusa as well as the great grandpa of the current owner Corrado Gurrieri, decided to buy the Buonivini (good wines) company. The property was encompassing a hill planted with Nero d’Avola grapes and orchards of olive trees and carob trees. In the midst of this Garden of Eden there was an old mill facility processing both the grapes and the olives. The grapes were pressed in the grape-mill (palmento) and then carried out on carts to a warehouses in Marzamemi, Sicily. Lastly these goods were shipped to Genoa, Malta and Great Britain using our family sea vessels.

Between 1800 and 1900 the winery was quite busy and prosperous. At harvest time, Don Giuseppe was employing up to 50 workers from neighbouring towns. The Buonivini building represented an important reference point in this area. It was referred as the Di Natale House whether by civilians or even on military road charts for this area.

At the end of the 19th century Giuseppe Di Natale along with partner Antonna, built a distribution warehouse (scagno) in Pachino, an area situated in the very Southern tip of Sicily. This facility was attracting brokers from all over Northern Italy. These trade people were seeking for robust and succulent wines expressing the radiance of our territory. This wine profile was very much on demand by dealers of Northern Italy. This company was known as: “Di Natale-Antonna”, and Giuseppe Di Natale became soon the sole owner. The 1903 issue of the “Industrial and Agricultural Review of Sicily” (Rivista commerciale industriale e agricola della Sicilia) mentioned the winery Di Natale as one of the most representative enterprise of Southern Sicily.

In 1908 Buonivini passed to Giuseppe Di Natale’s son Don Corrado. He was a very popular and charismatic man as reported by the many writings and narrative of his workers.

In 1936 due to unfavourable economic convergences, the wine prices collapsed. This fact represented a unique opportunity for all warehouses that start buying enormous quantities of wine. As a result, there were riots organized by starved farmers who plundered and burned down all warehouses except Don Corrado’s facility: he was the only buyer who was loyal and respectful to the farmers hard work. So he refused to lower his prices in order to keep sustainable the efforts of the local growers. During this time period, additional estates were acquired by Don Corrado.

In 1949 the Buonivini vineyards were passed as a dowry to Don Corrado’s daughter Maria and her husband, lawyer Angelo Gurrieri. They embarked on a major transformation: they expanded the vineyards planted to Nero d’Avola, they expanded the wine mill (palmento) and increased their cellar capacity to 1200 hl. They bought another vineyard, Gisira, where they planted citrus trees while implementing a major drainage project. At that time the traditional crops (wine, olive oil and carobs) were replaced with greenhouse farming. Maria and Angelo Gurrieri, jointly with their son Corrado, made sure to keep the traditional vocation of this territory and even increased the vineyards planting 5 ha. with white Muscat, henceforth producing DOC Moscato di Noto.