Our Last Three Days in Sicily, at Luxurious Baglio Occhipinti

      Arianna Occhipinti makes world class wines at her winery in Vittoria, Sicily.  She and her family own Baglio Occhipinti (pronounced oh-key-Pin-tee), a luxury country estate with twelve guest rooms, a couple of miles from the winery.  The property has a fine restaurant, and the service is top notch.  Every attempt is made to be as low impact on the local environment as possible.  We stayed at the Baglio for three nights, before flying to Pisa from the nearby Comiso airport (that's another story!)

     Here are some views of the Baglio, and of our room...

                                         

                             

The kitchen garden...

Beautiful salt water pool, but a bit too
chilly for us to use...

            

                                               

We sat around the fireplace every 
night before dinner...

Beautiful dining room, with the old
fermentation pits...

  

                                                  

Our room...

                                                             

Our semi-private outdoor area...

Catching some Sicilian sunshine...

                                           

A poppy in the flower garden...

A delicious 2020 Occhipinto Frappato...

My lovely dining companion...

       We couldn't stay at the Baglio without visiting the winery.  Our tour guide Marica did a great job of explaining how carefully the Occhipinti team go about the wine making process.  One of the interesting facts about this winery is that they do much of the fermentation in concrete tanks, similar to the amphorae of old...

                                          

The entrance to the winery

                                                  

                                             

Concrete fermentation tanks...

Really large oak barrels...

The bottling room...

The tasting room....

                                 

The winery's kitchen garden...

                                                              

Joe's souvenir, a wine box lid!

      We had a wonderful stay at Baglio Occhipinti.  Sad to leave, and sad to think about leaving Sicily after six amazing weeks.  We enjoyed time spent with old friends, and made new ones.  And the weather was absolutely perfect.  

      But there are still Sicilian experiences to recall, like interesting side trips, and how we scrambled to get to Florence after the flight was cancelled.

      Until next time, from your sometimes scrambling but usually in control travelers, Joe and Chris.  

      Click on any photo to enlarge.