TN: 2010 Tenuta delle Terre Nere Etna Rosso

Props to Nick Leveille at Table & Vine for recommending this gem to fill out a case of Foillard, Lapierre and Chartogne-Taillet. Easily the best $15 red wine I’ve tasted to date. This is a refreshing bottle of wine, which I mean both figuratively and literally. Plenty of acid to enliven the fresh and pure flavors, it’s also a nice change of pace for me and my usual purchases, being from Sicily. Nose is reminiscent of strawberry Gatorade grounded by soil notes and the palate packs a lot of weight and material on what’s a sprightly frame. A pretty yet substantial wine at the same time, really great find. Excellent on its own but I can see this being perfect with sushi.

It’s a great value wine and will change a lot of minds about what Sicilian wine can be. The upper-tier wines are also worth a look. Haven’t tried the “pre-phylloxera” bottling yet, but I’m picking up a bottle soon.

I had a disappointing 2006 prephylloxera Don Peppino, but an awesome 2004 Guardiola. Maybe I just didn’t give the Peppino enough air.

Found this gem as well at T&V. Agree with those comments from Peter C. The volcanic derived soils add a nice complexity.

Try the Terre Nere Etna Rosso Vigna Don Peppino if you can find it. It is a cuvee from ungrafted very old vines. Not $15 but worth the tarriff. NB I haven’t had the 06.

I’ve had a good handful of terre mere wines, a few have been wonderful as you describe but some have been very hard and overworked, some oaky, and a few early bottles volatile. Good to here the '10 is in form, I do think it was perhaps more reliable than the crus in the past, if not as complex.

This particular bottle certainly isn’t complex but it is delicious, I didn’t detect any overt oak, though the heavy oak treatments may be reserved for their higher end wines. Even on day two, the most interesting aspect is how much fruit/mineral/soil elements are stacked onto such a light bodied wine. It’s tough to describe, almost reminds of an Arbois Poulsard in that respect. This can go with just about any food short of fatty beef, really hard to beat for the price.

I’ve only tried a couple of the cru bottlings, and I didn’t enjoy either as much as the rosso. The personality of the cru wines seemed masked - perhaps by oak or they were in a closed phase. Whatever the reason they struck me as more generic.

The rosso bottling has consistently shown a distinctive personality. The 09 was probably my favorite qpr of last year.

I hadn’t thought of a comparison to Poulsard. The 09 especially really reminded me of a beaujolais from Morgon. Or perhaps to the Produtorri’s Langhe Nebbiolo.

Drinking the '09 Don Peppino tonight. Really tasty stuff despite its youth.

Which wines were oaky and overworked?

My sorta limited experience with the various Cru Bottlings in 09 suggest wines that need air to blossom, but nothing “oaky.”