The hilltop town of Taormina overlooking
Giardini Naxos bay, facing snow-capped Mount Etna.
Passengers gasp as Mount Etna comes into view. The world’s most active stratovolcano is puffing merrily as the plane circles near it before landing in Catania on Sicily’s east coast. It dominates the landscape, rising to about 3,350m, with a circumference at the base of about 150km, old lava flows scarring the mountainside in multiple places.
You sense the volcano everywhere you go – from the dialled-up flavours of the produce to the black dust on your shoes (a little tip: don’t wear white trainers) after a walk on its slopes. And you taste it in the wines, which display an impressive sense of place, fascinating all who taste them.
Making wine here certainly isn’t for the faint-hearted. The terroir changes constantly, with every belch of black ash, which happens continually. Consequently, there are now 142 contradas (comparable to the lieu-dit or cru in France), wrapped around the mountain in a horseshoe shape, each defined by elevation and climate, and by the individual lava flows that have swept across the soils.
Winemakers here are quick to highlight this unique terroir. They point out the cool nights and warm days, the intense sunlight and the old, higher-elevation vineyards, which are largely bush ‘alberello’ trained, with some even ungrafted and pre-phylloxera vines. Combine that with the largely native varieties grown here – with tough little Nerello Mascalese leading the lighter-style reds and Carricante making up the bulk of the intense, signature whites – and it’s easy to understand why Etna has become catnip for wine lovers.
Now throw in an influx of smart new accommodation, some offered by the wine producers themselves, and a cuisine that thrills thanks to Sicily’s many historical invaders, plus newly tarmacked roads (thanks to earlier damage from eruptions) just an hour’s drive from Catania, and Etna is an exciting new destination for the wine tourist.
Credit: JP Map Graphics Ltd
Life amid the lava
Part of Etna’s attraction is its otherworldliness, with lunar landscapes and wildly unpredictable weather. Volcano-battered, black stone-built towns and villages cling to Etna’s slopes and, between the strips of hardened lava, the landscape bursts with life. In spring – the best time to visit – abundant yellow broom pops against the black earth, as vines awaken on steep terraces carved out high on the mountainside, set among oak and chestnut forests, hazelnut and apple trees, wild flowers and fragrant herbs. There’s a palpable energy that radiates from the mountain itself and from the people who live and work here.
Anna Martens harvesting Vigna Nave at 1,100m on the northeast face of Mount Etna. Credit Hesh Hipp
‘We can feel that energy in the wines,’ declares Eric Narioo during a tour around his Solicchiata cellar, where he makes organic wines under the Vino di Anna label with his wife Anna Martens. Natural wine fans might recognise his name – he’s the French-born owner of Guildford-based wine merchant Les Caves de Pyrene, which put natural wine on the map in the UK. He was also among the first to bring attention to Etna more than a decade ago, when the pair first rocked up here. ‘The healthy growing conditions and high altitudes have made farming organically less challenging than in more humid parts of the world,’ Narioo explains, showing off the qvevri they use for ageing and macerating, and the old palmento – the traditional stone building in which wine was made in Sicily, with a permanent system of stone-cut containers and channels for foot-treading of the grapes and gravity-feeding of the juice into the fermentation and ageing vessels. Today, the use of palmenti has been officially abandoned – declared too unhygienic by Brussels bureaucrats.
My perfect day on and around Mt Etna
Morning
Start the day with a stroll through the chestnut forest on the edge of…
Source : https://www.decanter.com.master.public.keystone-prod-eks-euw1.futureplc.engineering/magazine/wine-lovers-guide-to-etna-542444/
