2021 Sicily Wine

Organic/Bio Russo’s Calderara Sottana is more red-fruited and open/fleshy than the darker, more intense, San Lorenzo. But there’s still plenty of intensity to the perfume and flavors and grip on the long, minerally,... Read More

Organic/Bio Only from Etna do you get this captivating combination of smoky volcanic rock and crunchy-ripe strawberry/sweet cherry fruit with mouthcoating tannins that give shape and elevate the flavors without drying you out... Read More

Organic/Bio At just 1,800 feet elevation, the lowest of Passopisciaro’s Contrada vines grow on the last edges of Mount Etna lava. The vines push through the lava to limestone and develop more rich, round, textures than the... Read More

Organic/Bio This is from a tiny, tiny, plot of vines Andrea Franchetti planted in the Passochianche contrada around 3,000 feet done in large oak. Maybe “Puligny Montrachet meets the Santa Cruz Mountains” suggests the... Read More

Organic/Bio With just 1HA of vines on the 2,800 foot elevation, lava-covered, Contrada Sciaranuova, Passopisciaro made only 165 cases or so of this in 2021. The name translates to new lava flow which covered the site in the 1600s... Read More

I never met Andrea Franchetti, who died in December 2021 at the age of 72. But this wine sums up everything I’ve read and heard from his partners at Passopisciaro. “Poetic” and “wildly visionary”... Read More

Organic/Bio Just as in the rest of Europe, when phylloxera came to Sicily in the early 20th Century it devastated most of the region's vineyards. But two small plots of Nerello Mascalese on Mount Etna's steep slopes survived,... Read More