How good is Nero d'Avola?

Can Nero d'Avola produce fine wines that express a very specific place of origin and improve with age? Sicilian father and son Vito (pictured left) and Matteo Catania, owners of the Gulfi estate in Chiaramonte Gulfi, central southern Sicily, and their Sicilian agronomist Salvo Foti (pictured below) would say yes, absolutely, and this was the point they wanted to make in a recent seminar in Chiaramonte Gulfi devoted to Nero d'Avola.

In his article Sicilia DOC? And Brand Nero d'Avola, Walter Speller provides the context for Gulfi's ambitions: 'Nero d'Avola is without a shadow of a doubt Sicily's most important...