COS is one of those benchmark producers e just HAVE to write about once in a while.

It’s hard to think of very many winemakers that better reflect our mission at Flatiron Wines: to bring the best of the world’s artisanal producers, from the most far-flung corners of the wine world, to our customers.

Yes, what seems new and adventurous one year quickly becomes old news in this frantic, Instagram-driven wine world that we now occupy. And we know, COS will seem like old news to many of you.

But just like there’s always room in your life for another visit to Paris, for another hamburger at the Corner Bistro, or for yet another evening re-watching Zoolander….there’s always room for another bottle of COS.

And looking back at our archives, we’ve never actually focused in on the most classic wine in the COS line-up: their Cerasuolo di Vittorio.

That’s a bottle that brings to your dining room not just the magic of COS, but also the 3,000 year wine history of Sicily’s southeast corner.

That’s a long history! Long enough that before the region had to deal with global warming and the global pandemic, it had to deal with such political challenges like who might win the Punic Wars between the Romans and the Carthaginians?

But throughout it all, there was one constant: a layer of red soil with a mix of limestone and sand on slopes 300 meters above the Mediterranean Sea

. They’ve had time to figure out what to grow in those soils – literally thousands of vintages – and it turns out to be the grapes Nero d’Avola and Frappato. Combine them, and you get the fruity exuberance of Nero with the racy Amaro-laced Frappato.

Like in a good Negroni, the fruity/bitter combination is delicious and so refreshing. The locals took to calling this wonderful blend Cerasuolo di Vittoria.

And nobody makes a finer, more classical version of this historic wine than COS, who even bottles it those fantastic historic-looking bottles. Today, we bring you their 2017 — it’s something like the 40th vintage in COS’s history and the 3,000th vintage in Sicily.