Pasqua Wines Expands Its Vision With Investment in Carole Bouquet’s Pantelleria Estate

Pasqua Wines marked its centenary by becoming the majority shareholder of Sangue d’Oro, the Pantelleria estate founded by Carole Bouquet. Bouquet had purchased the estate around twenty years earlier; 3.6 ha were planted to Moscato d’Alessandria (Zibibbo), including vines more than 80 years old. Her use of Pantelleria’s historic Zibibbo methods produced the Passito di Pantelleria DOC Sangue d’Oro and attracted early critical and collector recognition.

The investment joined Bouquet’s experience with Pasqua’s growth strategy and presented the project as cultural and environmental as well as commercial. Its aims include protecting the island’s ancestral know-how, supporting a community facing reduced cultivation and agricultural abandonment, and giving Pantelleria renewed visibility. The terraced Contrada Serraglia vineyards are protected by dry-stone walls and rooted in soils composed of 70% volcanic rock and 30% clay and limonite. Zibibbo is harvested by hand and dried naturally in sun and wind before vinification.

Riccardo Pasqua described the vineyards, the island and Bouquet’s savoir-faire as the project’s opportunity. Bouquet called the partnership a passing of the baton and a new stage of growth in which Pasqua would add strength while respecting the spirit of Pantelleria’s artisans. The wider urgency was illustrated by Pantelleria’s harvest decline from 450,000 quintals in the 1970s to around 28,000 in the early 2000s.