2021 Nerello Mascalese

Organic/Bio Eduardo Torres Acosta learned to make wine with his grandfather in Tenerife before shifting his attention to another volcanic island and coming to Sicily in 2012 to work a harvest with Arianna Occhipinti. He’s... Read More

Federico Graziani comes at Etna wine from the perspective of a taster. At age 15 he took his first wine tasting course and in 1998, at age 23, he was crowned Italy’s top sommelier. He came to Etna in 2008 and now has 6HA... Read More

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 Pre-Order Only At the very top of San Lorenzo, at 750 meters elevation, almost too high to be “Etna Rosso,” Russo farms a 0.7HA plot of vines planted in the early 1940s. Originally they were trained on... 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 Contrada Rampante is Passopisciaro's highest cru and, at 3,300 feet, at the very limit of where Nerello Mascalese can be grown. It's loaded with floral perfume and lifted by vital acidity, but the fruit - sweet/tart,... 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

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