Duca di Salaparuta, 200 years with the art of Renato Guttuso, Mimmo Pintacuda and Emilio

The colors of “Paesaggio dell’Aspra”, a work created in 1959 by the great artist Renato Guttuso - who, on the 50th anniversary of his death, returns to the spotlight at Villa Cattolica with the inauguration of an unprecedented installation inside the museum named after him, and which sees Duca di Salaparuta and the museum structure as accomplices - covering the Autentici di Sicilia line; the relationship of man with a sincere land evoked in the photographs of master Mimmo Pintacuda with his unmistakable black and white, which leaves its mark in the Le Tenute line; the baroque Villa Valguarnera, where it all began with Giuseppe Alliata Duca di Salaparuta, in 1824, depicted by Emilio Murdolo, the first painter to express himself through Sicilian carts, which becomes the image of a new oenological project born from a love for Nero d’Avola and a name dear to the winery, Triskelè. Like some of the most important Sicilian intellectuals of all time, who unveiled the beauty of Sicily and their homeland, Duca di Salaparuta (now in the Duca di Salaparuta Group, with the historic brands Florio and Corvo, united into a single entity by the Reina family, ed.) and its long winemaking tradition of 200 years and 200 vintages are inextricably linked to Bagheria, a true “wine-culture terroir”, and which will be celebrated with a new mission for the future: to open up to the territory and enhance, through the iconic wines Bianca di Valguarnera and Duca Enrico, Sicily’s intangible and material heritages.
The founder was the Sicilian politician Giuseppe Alliata Duca di Salaparuta, when in 1824 he decided to make wine at his summer residence, Villa Valguarnera (still owned by the Alliata family, among the oldest and most emblazoned in Sicily), from grapes from his Casteldaccia estates, resulting in wines that at first would be shared at official luncheons and family ceremonies. But passion would give way to actual production, with names of intellectuals such as Edoardo, to whom the Cantine di Casteldaccia is owed, Enrico, a gastronome and writer, and the painter, writer and gallery owner Topazia Alliata, a friend of Guttuso (and mother of the great writer Dacia Maraini, who dedicated the autobiographical story “Bagheria” to her land and set there the Campiello Prize-winning historical novel “The Long Life of Marianna Ucrìa”, and whose father is Fosco Maraini, one of the greatest anthropologists of the 20th century, ed.).
The rest is the story of what is considered the first entrepreneurial example of winemaking on the Northwest coast by a company that, from generation to generation, today, is among the names that represent Sicily’s oldest winemaking tradition, with roots in Bagheria, a land, for director Roberto Magnisi, “with a strong identity that is also communicative”.
The celebrations, in 2024, are meant to be an act of love addressed to a Sicily that has not lost its soul and desire to surround itself with beauty, art and poetry. Bagheria is its beating heart, and Duca di Salaparuta recovers and enhances the link, through the painting of Renato Guttuso, the photography of Mimmo Pintacuda, and the art of the cart of Emilio Murdolo, which inspired the entire restyling project of the labels dedicated to the anniversary, and which will also see the creation of a short documentary on the creative flair of these extraordinary artists, with collateral initiatives open to synergies with the territory, in a recovery of the roots of a land that still smells of orange blossom, in a stage of excellence between painting, culture and food and wine.