Etna: A rising force

When I last reported on the wines of Etna, back in 2010, the boom had just begun. The Benanti family had been the pioneers of high-quality wine, but had been joined by outsiders such as Andrea Franchetti at Passopisciaro, Marc de Grazia at Terre Nere, and Frank Cornelissen.

Their interest was often sparked by an encounter with an exceptionally intriguing Etna wine. A fine bottle would have stood out against many dire wines that were still being made in the past by some traditional wineries that paid little attention to hygiene. At the same time other established wineries, such as Cottanera, moved dramatically to improve quality.

 Scroll down for Stephen Brook’s top 20: best of Etna’s volcanic whites and reds

It’s not hard to see where the appeal of Etna lies. First, the landscape. Frequent eruptions have left huge bands of knobbly lava on various slopes of the volcano. It may not sound like the most promising terroir, yet lava does give the wines a mineral bite.

Passopisciaro’s genial manager Vincenzo Lo Mauro showed me an immense lava field that in 1981 stopped just short of the town of Randazzo. ‘I saw it coming down the mountain, glowing red and turning, and I’ll never forget the strong sulphurous smell.’

It can be sunny in the port town of Catania just to the south, yet pouring with rain on Etna – but the lumpen lava beds also have the advantage of being well drained. Wind too can help keep rot at bay.

Then there are the grape varieties: Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio for the reds, and Carricante for the whites. Nerello Cappuccio is not that important and is most often found as a component in blends. The few purely varietal versions I’ve tried have not been persuasive.

But Nerello Mascalese is a wonderful variety, at least on Etna. It can be very perfumed, and reminiscent of Pinot Noir in its aromas, although its complexity and structure are more akin, perhaps, to Nebbiolo. It has muscle and strength too, and alcohols are generally around 14%. Its growing season is long, often stretching into November, making it a variety that strongly displays vintage character. But it’s not easy to vinifiy. Patricia Tóth at Planeta, who has helped to develop the company’s vineyards, observes: ‘It’s a blood-chilling variety. It starts very tannic and only gains body with maceration.’

Carricante delivers racy, taut whites. It’s occasionally blended with Catarratto, though it stands up perfectly well on its own.

High principles

Etna has, it may be obvious to point out, elevation. Vineyards lie at 600m-1,000m. At above 800m vineyards are, absurdly, not considered worthy of inclusion in the DOC. The elevation ensures that however scorching the summer days, temperatures can plummet at night, helping to preserve acidity in the grapes and slowing their maturation. Moreover, there are significant parcels of old vines, some centenarian, and even some pre-phylloxera plantings.

It has helped that producers are for the most part quality-conscious. The poorly made wines I was still tasting in 2010 seem to have vanished. The newcomers either had the financial resources or the determination (often both) to produce wines that would make their mark on the international stage. Etna, in short, has been a huge success, and other Italian wineries such as Cusumano, Firriato, Piccini, Planeta, Sette Ponti and Tasca, although late arrivals at the party, are now well established here. Planeta operates under its own name, while Firriato’s Etna label is Cavanera, Cusumano’s is Alta Mora, Piccini’s is Torre Mora, and Tasca d’Almerita has more modestly gone for Tascante. And Angelo Gaja is now striding onto this stage, with his first wines due to be released by early 2020.

Those who spearheaded the Etna revival in the 1990s and early 2000s are very much still in place. It was possible to fault wineries such as Passopisciaro and Terre Nere for excessive alcohol in the past, but recent vintages have been more restrained and better balanced. Even Frank Cornelissen has mellowed. Once the poster boy for natural winemaking on Etna, the Belgian winemaker still adheres to the fundamental principles of low-interference vinification, but he prefers to talk of authentic or territorial wines rather than of ‘natural wines’. Contrary to popular belief, he has never farmed biodynamically, and only a few top wines are aged in amphorae. Low doses of sulphur dioxide and routine if light filtration are now practised.

Other, established properties are less well known than the newcomers (once scornfully derided by the locals as ‘colonists’) but continue to produce wines of consistently high quality – producers such as Calcagno, Fessina, Girolamo Russo (founded by Giuseppe Russo, a classical pianist turned winemaker in 2006), Pietradolce and Setteporte. Their wines can be bought with confidence.

Dynamic scene

Etna’s growing reputation has inevitably fuelled expansion, but it’s limited. Lo Mauro observes: ‘In 2009 you could buy vineyards for €40,000 per hectare. Today you’ll be paying €150,000 – if you can find any. Look around you, it’s just lava and scrub here. It’s still possible to find very old vineyards, but often there’s a crumbling farmhouse attached that nobody wants. That’s why new investors such as Gaja have been buying in the southern and slightly lower part of Etna.’

In Italy new wineries often try to make an architectural statement so as to validate the enterprise. Here on Etna, Pietradolce has built a dark horizontal slab on a hillside to house its cellars, and the Cusumano brothers at Alta Mora have lavished money on a handsome new winery. Costanzo, another new producer, has adapted an existing gravity-fed winery called locally a palmento, harnessing the modern to the traditional.

Although Etna has become the favourite viticultural playground for successful Sicilian entrepreneurs as well as for outside wineries, not all new ventures are well heeled and sophisticated. SRC Vini is a small 8ha family operation, which produced its first vintage in 2013. Rori and Cinzia Parasiliti produce no fewer than two white wines and three red, farming organically, and all from traditional varieties. These are wines of finesse and character: Rivaggi is from 80-year-old vines grown at 950m, with 20% Grenache in the blend; Alberello is pure Nerello Mascalese from centenarian vines, aged in cement tanks.

Even more recent is Buscemi, a small estate at 980m owned by Mirella Buscemi, wife of the well-known Alberto Graci. Apparently the vineyards were once owned by Admiral Nelson. She trumps the Parasiliti by bottling a wine that’s a field blend with 30% Grenache. And here comes Giodo, a mere 1ha, but owned and vinified by none other than Carlo Ferrini, one of Italy’s most skilled consultant oenologists. His new release, the Alberelli di Giodo 2016, is of exceptional quality.

Positive vibes

Clearly, Etna continues to fizz with activity and new enterprises. I don’t find this particularly mysterious. Compared to most wine regions, it has a distinct identity and homogeneity that derive from its volcanic soils and an elevation that delivers a balanced and harmonious climate. True, the northern slopes are more highly rated than the southern side, but the latter is still home to excellent vineyards worked by Benanti, Biondi, Nicosia and others. Etna is also endowed with splendid indigenous varieties in the red Nerello Mascalese and the white Carricante. Granted, Carricante is not universally admired, and neither Cornelissen nor Franchetti can work up much enthusiasm for it. But they are in a distinct minority. Tóth explains: ‘Carricante’s aromas are neutral until just before ripeness, so they can be lost if it’s picked too early just for acidity.’

Moreover, the slopes are studded with a plethora of old vines, which naturally reduces yields, even if the gigantic yields of the past are no longer tolerated anyway. Local viticulturists such as Salvo Foti, who spent almost 20 years at Benanti before branching out on his own, have spread the word about the best sites and the mountain’s long vine-growing history. Etna has been fortunate in its propagandists too. Franchetti is almost an impresario here, organising public tasting events such as the annual Contrade; during the 2019 event he blithely invited some 200 participants back to Passopisciaro for an informal lunch, even though he himself wasn’t there.

Cornelissen has captured the affections of natural-wine aficionados, although in recent years he has become less pure-minded and extreme, and the wines are all the better for it. Marc de Grazia of Terre Nere, with his roots in the US as a wine merchant, has opened American eyes and palates to the singularity of Etna’s wines.

All bodes well, then; it’s no surprise that the Etna bandwagon continues to roll. Errors of the past – over-extraction, very high alcohol – have been largely corrected. The best wines are magnificent, and even the more everyday wines can be delicious and full of character. Inevitably there is some hype mixed into the brew of Etna’s increasingly chic status, but the truth remains that worldwide enthusiasm for these wines is richly deserved.

Stephen Brook has been a contributing editor to Decanter since 1996

See Stephen Brook’s top 20: best of Etna’s volcanic whites and reds

You may also like

Expert’s Choice: Sicily’s native whitesDiscover Sicily: 20 great buysTop volcanic winesItaly’s best white wines with food