After the success of Grillo, it is time to think about the revival of another great native Sicilian white grape: the Catarratto Lucido.
The Consorzio di Tutela Vini Doc Sicilia, chaired by Antonio Rallo, has moved forward with a project to support the grape variety, putting in place a co-designing hub between public administration, research bodies, companies and local authorities.
Let’s start with the name: for us “nostalgics” it is Catarratto, but the project aims to use the name Lucido, which used to be the adjective that was part of the full name registered at Masaaf (thus in the National Catalogue of Vine Varieties: Catarratto Bianco Lucido or Lustro) and which is considered more suitable for disclosure.
I personally disagree and love the old name, but that is not the point.
Catarratto Lucido is numerically heavy in Sicily: we are talking about more than 30,000 hectares of vineyards compared to the total extension of the Sicilian vineyard of more than 90,000 hectares.
It goes without saying that fully enhancing this vine means ensuring competitiveness for the producing companies and welfare for the territory.
But it will be better to start from the beginning.
So let us take the information sent by the Consortium and read it together.
The premise
Lucido plays a prominent role in Sicilian viticulture, representing not only one of the most widespread varieties still grown today (30 percent of production), but also a symbol of the island’s winemaking tradition; adaptable and resilient, contributes to the diversity and richness of Sicilian production, offering a wide range of organoleptic nuances.
Its potential can be referred to the production of monovarietal wines, but also to the composition of blends that express the identity and complexity of the Sicilian terroir. 
The grape variety today suffers from a somewhat downsized at the level of wine critics, the media and the market. With the V.I.S.T.A. Lucido project, in which the acronym expresses the Innovative and Sustainable Valorization of the Terroirs of Native Varieties., the Consortium for the Protection of Sicily DOC Wines, chaired by Antonio Rallo, wanted to commit itself as project leader and coordinator, in support of the grape variety, creating a co-design hub between public administration, research organizations, companies and local authorities, financed
under Submeasure 16.1 of the 2014-2020 RDP SICILIA.
The project
The project aims to. make a significant contribution to the scientific debate in the field, to To provide new impetus to the domestic and international polish market, aiming at the enhancement of the widespread Sicilian variety, but also at the creation of an in-depth prototype that can be replicated in similar contexts.
Adherence to the project by leading Sicilian wineries, the Regional Wine and Oil Institute, under the guidance of the Wine Protection Consortium and the support of an Innovation Broker, realizes a shared prototype of applied research in viticulture, aimed at popularizing sustainable practices, aiming at the excellence and distinctiveness of Lucido wines, ensuring environmentally friendly production that can be recognized and appreciated.
The project consists of a series of scientific and popular activities, aimed at bringing significant benefits to the Lucido supply chain and generating increased competitiveness for the companies working in it; not least, the purpose of create a database that companies can use to measure their environmental impacts and develop protocols aimed at reducing their respective footprints.
The survey of producers
As part of the project, a survey was conducted among producers to highlighting the operators’ own perceptions of the health status of the grape variety, its market potential and the most suitable actions for its enhancement.
The weight of Catarratto Lucido in quantitative terms is matched by the findings of the survey, which reports, for about 70 percent of respondents, the high importance of this grape variety for winemaking Sicily: Lucido is now considered a very identifying grape variety for the Sicilian territory. It is evident, however, that it has undergone a downsizing in recent years as far as wine critics, the media and the market are concerned.
Producers were asked to identify the causes of this bending process: for a good 50 percent of the respondents, the reasons are due to too heterogeneous qualification at the regional level, and in particular a inadequate identification of the most suitable areas, as well as to poor investment in research to learn more about the agronomic and oenological characteristics of the grape variety; other reasons include the infrequent evidence of excellence And ineffective communication.
The potential from an agronomic and enological point of view, on the other hand, is considered good and in most cases no particular problems are reported compared to other varieties.
What about the name?
For many producers, the use of the name Catarratto has created some diffusion problems in the market, due to difficulties in remembering the term (especially by a foreign audience) and a lack of vis attractiveness of the name itself; a few isolated indications from those who, instead, prefer the old name Catarratto to the more modern appellation Lucido. For our part, we believe that Catarratto (or Lucido as it may be) has enormous potential, and if we say so it is because in our history as tasters we have found some extremely good ones.
We point out five that you can currently find on the market.
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