In Sicily: Etna trek
Posted on 25 September 2012
Greetings from Sicily. After a quiet end of summer for this blog I am on the wine trail again. This time on the Mediterranean’s largest island on a comprehensive tour that will take me from its Far East to the Far West. Our merry group of journos (and buyers) started the excursion on the Etna. I visited here three years ago (see posts 1 – 2 – 3) so it is interesting to see how things are evolving winewise.
But we started the day with a Landrover drive up Europe’s biggest volcano, hosted by young volcanologist Natalie Milano who also runs the interesting Etna News blog. We went through some very rough terrain, scrub and pine forest up to 2000 m asl. The idyllic trek was abruptly interrupted by an incredible amount of lava remains from the 2001 Etna eruption, which completely destroyed the Piano Provenzana tourist & ski station including the roads. Epic.
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The roads have already been rebuilt but it takes 500 years for a forest to grow again. A little shorter for the lava outcrops to erode and fertilize the soils to help the Homo sapiens grow pistachioes, peaches – or vines.
Speaking of the latter we visited three producers as well as tasted many more wines at dinner. Benanti was in their usual good shape including a deliciously mineral white Pietramarina 2008 (slightly evolved but this wine has a long track record for ageing) while the star of the reds, to me, was the simple Rossodiverzella 2010 with succulent cherry fruit and the tactile finesse of a good Burgundy. Cantine Russo made me wonder why Etna wines need so much cinnamonny, cheesy oak that makes them resemble a Ribera del Duero.
At Gambino I didn’t care much about the Cantâri 2011, a blanc de noirs made from Etna’s Nerello Mascalese, but the Alicante 2010 was surprisingly good: made from a local strain of Grenache brought to Sicily by the Aragonese dynasty, it showed the pepper, flesh and personality of a good Rhône. We also tasted a promising barrel sample of the Petto Dragone 2011, an oaked Nerello that takes the grape’s inherent elegance to a tantalising extreme (and it will retail for a mere 15€). But perhaps even more impressive was the winery’s basic wine sold for 10€ in 5-liter bag-in-box, Muraglione, which with its intensity of blackberry fruit was as good as any more expensive bottling I’ve sampled today.
Our last visit was at Nicosia, the area’s largest operation with 2m bottles per year. Five wines under the Fondo Filara brand showed commercial common sense and good value for money (10–12€); I’d single out the Cerasuolo di Vittoria Classico 2009 and Etna Rosso 2009 as the most interesting.
Other than so many wines, I’ve been enjoying the crazy traffic, Baroque churches, unstoppable vegetation, and 10-ml downsized espresso servings: Sicily.
My to Sicily including flights, accommodation and wine tasting programme is sponsored by the IRVOS regional wine institute.