Looking forward to the G.
Drinking a 2010 Tenuta delle Terre Nere Etna Il Quadro delle Rose Feudo di Mezzo. Stupidly good. Smoke and roses and cherry. This stuff is unreal.
I recently had the 2010 Passopisciaro Passopisciaro Sicilia IGT. Less approachable at this point.
Really interesting wines/region.
The Terre Nere wines are a pleasure. They have structure such that I find myself wondering what they will be like with 10 years of age.
Hard for me to fully describe. After tasting the wines I changed my plans and went to Etna. Some of the most interesting wines that I have tasted in years. I really was stunned by the wines and Etna. Much of the landscape is almost like a carpet that is wrinkled and bunched up. Black lava soil in huge clumps. Many of the vineyards are terraces. That are walled up with stone cut from the same lava/stone. The rows are so small that many can only be worked by hand. At Passopisciaro I toured the vineyards and met the older gentleman that sold Francheti the Porcaria plot. And we walked into his abondoned Palmento(old wine making building, now banned)near the plot. At Terre Nere we toured the vineyards and I was struck by just how small the Prephyloxera/DonPeppino(130-140 years old) vineyard was. We drove all the way up to the point that you must enter the National park area that surrounds the top of the Volcano to go any higher. The area begins to look much like a lunar landscape. Temps up here were a full 35F degrees lower than Taormina. Six months later and I still feel it’s pull. In all of my visits in Virginia, California, France and Italy, nothing was like this. As I have said, really hard to fully describe. And I don’t think I have done it justice. This might help, but I am not sure anything will.
Just received a stash of 2011 Contrada’s over the weekend. Let you guys know how it is when I can get around to opening some. Thinking of Sicily actually makes me crave for some granite slushies…
How do the TN and Passopisciaro compare to other makers like, say Benanti?
Benanti works in slightly warmer areas and the wines reflect that warmth. And are a touch more modern. Still very good wines. I did a 1.5 hour tour/tasting with them, very impressed. They seemed to be moving in a more traditional direction to making the wines.
The Serra della Contessa vineyard is roughly the same altitude as Chiappemacine (which, I believe, is the lowest of Franchetti’s Crus), but the vineyard in Rovitello is around 750m, as far as I know, and the Pietramarina nearly 950m (although on a different, general warmer “versante” in the Milo area). But, generally speaking, yes - I am not aware of anyone else with a collection of high-altitude vineyards like Franchetti’s.
I feel that Benanti’s wines are somewhat underrated, somehow drowned out by the general commotion and the excitement created by more “mediatic” arrivals in the area over the last ten or so years. Probably also has something to do with their relatively non-assertive style: “enlightened” but conservative. To me they have been consistently excellent over the years almost across the range, and I still think that the Rosso di Verzella is possibly one of the best values there. (Pietramarina remains completely in a league its own - although Fessina is making giant strides with A’ Puddara).
(I don’t think I’ve tasted any of the post-Foti wines from Benanti, though. Curious to see how that pans out for them.)
I don’t find Benanti’s wines more modern, and have the Etna character in them. And yes, one doesn’t hear too much about them, which is sad.
Gary said “a touch more modern” compared to Franchetti’s wines. Per se, I don’t find them in any way modern, either.
Other than that, for me the jury is still out on Franchetti’s Etna wines. Fascinating stuff, sure, and I’ll definitely be watching that space, but I need some more time to really get a handle on how the Passopisciaro wines are working out. In other words, will they really become the untouchable, reference wines from the Etna, well ahead of the rest of the pack? That is clearly the ambition and, frankly, nothing else would justify the pricing policy (Franchetti’s track record in these matters more or less suggests that prices will continue to creep up with every new vintage).
Benanti, on the other hand, is a well-established identity, and their wines have what is already a very solid track record.
Gary, I agree with your assessment of the area. We spent two weeks in Sicily and felt mostly like we were in Italy. On Etna we were on Mars. Very cool.
This Sunday I am attending a Sicily tasting and bringing a 2008 Passopisciaro Passopisciaro IGT. Should I double decant at home or pop and pour at the restaurant?
I’ve tasted a pretty wide range from Sicily.
Passopisciaro, Terre Nerre and Romeo del Castello are the three Etna producers whose wines I have found most interesting.
Passopisciaro’s wines are the most immediate, generous of the three and seem to have both immediate appeal and have the room to grow in the bottle over time. The hallmark that makes several of their wines great is that no matter when you open them, they have something to show.
The up and coming producer Romeo del Castello is doing some very interesting things. I think their site is truly special and the releases have been very good so far.
Terre Nerre also produces a nice range but the recent wines have a strictness/ hardness in their style that hopefully will round out in time (it could also be the result of the climate in recent years).
Cernos,
have you tried the wines of “I Vigneri”? I have one Vinupetra 2006 in my cellar, but have yet to try it.
Re “a collection of high altitude vineyards”, been to Alto Adige?
http://www.altoadigewinesusa.com/extreme-wine-growing-extremely-good-wine/
http://www.winewisdom.com/articles/altitude-acclaimed-wines-from-pre-alpine-alto-adige/
Gilberto, yes, I have tried most of the Vigneri wines over the last six or so years. I admire Salvo Foti’s work on every level. I generally find Vinupetra stunning, it is one of my favourite wines from the Etna (Feudo di Mezzo in this case).
(Incidentally, I had the 2006 in Rome in February this year and it was wonderful. None left in my cellar, regrettably.)
They are peculiar wines. I don’t know what kind of wines you normally go in for but if, like me, you end up being drawn to their very personal idiom, I think you’re in for a real treat with this bottle.
Try Vinudilice and Vinujancu as well, if you can find them. Crazy, delicate, savoury, weightless, really really unique wines.
(BTW, not that it matters, but my first name is Tvrtko 
)
Yes, what about it? 
I had the doubt and did a quick internet search and concluded that Tvrtko is a Bosnian family name, so I went for Cernos.
Perhaps also because it looks easier to pronounce 
.
Writing, however, is no problem, dear Tvrtko
On a more serious note: in Alto Adige there seems to be a clear preference for vineyards which are actually in the mid-strip altitudewise. Unlike the Etna vineyards, the ones over cca 600-700 m often have real trouble ripening, as well as a lot of other problems. As ever, there are, of course, exceptions (the good people at Unterortl, understandably , as well as a handful of others, plus Alto Adige is a lot of different things, and Ora is not Naturns is not Fie’ is not Caldaro etc.), but most top-notch wineries in the area seem to be really comfortable with the 200-400 MASL range and appear to source their best fruit from those vineyards. On the whole, I’d say we are talking about a very different situation there.
No problem at all - and I’ve only got my parents to blame . Cheers!
I am starting to hear about 600m vineyards, but I agree that there aren’t that many. I was amazed to discover how warm the region is: in August it’s warmer than either Rome or Naples(?!).
Etna is very far south of Bolzano, a different situation indeed. Parts of Sicily are further south than the northern tip of Italy is.