Grape Variety: Frappato

Colour: Red

Frappato may sound like an iced cappuccino but is yet another recondite grape variety in the Les Caves pantheon. We would describe it as Sicily’s Négrette - which will surely compound any existing confusion felt.~It is used most notably as 40% of the blend to produce the D.O.C. Cerasuolo di Vittoria. Vittoria is located in south east Italy with an excellent micro-climate allowing late-ripening of the red grapes. The wines are characteristically fresh and distinguished by red fruit flavours. Cerasuolo is generally light ruby-red in colour, and bursting with aromas of berries - bilberry, blackberry and raspberry - bright, light, but persistent on the palate, juicily oozing a hedgerow of summer fruits. ‘Pithos’ from COS displays the personality of the Frappato grape with its exuberant expression of violets and raspberry blossom. The mouth is floral, warm and supple, the berry fruit flavours complemented by soft tannins, The Cerasuolo di Vittoria Classica from the same estate - a blend of Frappato and Nero d’Avola is in the same idiom but with greater definition and vivid minerality. The wines from this region are medium-bodied with moderate tannin; the COS wines unusually see no oak - the Pithos is fermented in traditional clay amphorae and other wines are fermented and aged in cement tanks.