SAVOURING SICILY
A new generation of ambitious winemakers in Sicily is raising the quality – and awareness – of wines produced on the southern Italian island.
A new generation of ambitious winemakers in Sicily is raising the quality – and awareness – of wines produced on the southern Italian island.
The volcano looms ahead of us, snow covering its upper flanks, a plume of white smoke trailing from its peak. Below are ebony slopes blanketed in forest, and, lower still, the terraces start – wide, dark steps cut into the hillside. Against the charcoal hues of the volcanic soils, the vines seem especially green.
It is lava from the 3,350m-high Mount Etna, the famous, stillactive, volcano on the Italian island of Sicily, that has, for tens of thousands of years, provided the mineral-rich soils here. But it is only in recent years that this fertile ground has become the home of some truly exciting winemaking.
A new crop of winemakers across Sicily, but especially on Etna, is focusing on the unique varieties of grape indigenous to the island. These winemakers are bucking global winemaking trends to chart their own path, cultivating the vines and making the wine in a way that best expresses the individual characteristics of the grape and its terroir.
While Sicily has been known for its Marsala, the sweet, fortified wine produced in the island’s wild west, as well as for its low-cost, high-quantity wines – it regularly produces as much wine as Australia, Chile and Bulgaria put together – its fine wines from this new approach are now turning heads and captivating palates.
“The reputation and quality of Etna wines are growing at a pace,” says Antonio Benanti, from his impressive visitor centre on the south-eastern slopes of the volcano. “For decades, the wines of Sicily were bulk, cheap wines used in blends. The island lacked people with vision to aim higher. But the terroir, the alpine elevation and drainage, the indigenous grape varieties – there’s so much potential here.”
FIRE OF THE NORTH
Antonio and his twin brother, Salvino, after business school and London banking jobs, returned to Sicily in 2012 to take over their father’s vineyards. They embarked on a fierce consolidation campaign: They sold off vineyards in other parts of the island, as well as less ideal Etna plots, and pulled up vines of all but indigenous varieties.
“My father started from scratch in the 1980s. There was plenty of local skill with grapes and vines but he had no prior knowledge of fine winemaking,” says Antonio. “The concept of reducing yields (to improve the quality of the grapes) was not known. Old growers would cry, when they saw us pruning and thinning, throwing away grapes.”
The Benantis now focus solely on the ancient native carricante – of which they make a particularly lovely single vintage Metodo Classico