Cantine Ermes, Sicily’s largest wine cooperative, describes itself as mosaico di identità, or “mosaic of identities,” referring to the wide variety of people, places and grapes that contribute to its winemaking operations. When passing through the rolling hills of the Belice Valley, you’ll find Cantine Ermes’s home and primary growing region; “mosaic” also appropriately describes the landscape. Amid the patchwork fields of grapes and grains, however, one patch is especially remarkable: a stark white field of plaster carved into a maze; a massive art installation that immortalizes the spot where, in 1968, the ground shook, and a 5.5-magnitude earthquake literally decimated Gibellina, a town at the very heart of the Belice Valley.
The 1968 Belice Valley earthquake was more than just structurally seismic for the area. The cataclysmic disaster gave rise to a reimagined Gibellina, and alongside it, Cantine Ermes—what would become one of Sicily’s most important
