A wine guide dedicated to Etna

Guides to Italian wine and those of its regions explore and reveal realities that excite all wine lovers. And what could be more exciting than Sicily and the winegrowing area around Mt. Etna?

The first Guide to the Wines of Etna  is now in bookstores thanks to the efforts of Fabrizio Carrera and Federico Latteri and their collaborators Francesco Pensovecchio and Giorgio Vaiana. The guide was published by the online magazine Cronachedigusto.it that has its headquarters in Palermo but knows the area of Etna well, its vineyards and the efforts of winemakers who have dedicated and continue to dedicate their lives to producing quality wines. It is a guide to wines but also one to the reality of Etna.

This is a guide to take to restaurants, wine shops and wine bars to understand this extraordinary land and the wines that are nurtured and produced under the shadow of the great volcano, a unique area thanks to its Mediterranean climate and rich history.

At one time quite forgotten, Etna reemerged on the wine scene thanks to the determination of several winemakers who firmly believed in this area. “In the mid-1980s,” Fabrizio Carrera explained, “the Benanti estate paved the way for courageous producers who, focusing more on quality than quantity, began to be known together, and more importantly, with their Etna wines that were then mentioned in Gambero Rosso’s Guide to Italian wines. This opened a floodgate and while at the end of the 1990s you could count the number of quality producers on the tips of your fingers, today there are over 90 and the number keeps rising. This success belongs to the whole area and while a hectare of vineyard land on and around Etna cost 15,000 euros when the single currency was introduced, today it sells for 80-90,000 euros”.

There has also been growing interest in Etna from producers from the mainland. A case in point is Silvia Maestrelli, a Tuscan lady who lived in Milan where she worked in real estate who then became involved with wine, an ancient family passion, in the area of Castiglione di Sicilia. It was love at first sight and she bought nine hectares of vineyards. Tenuta di Fessina is situated at an altitude of 670m above sea level in Castiglione di Sicilia and is one of the 51 estates selected by the guide. Of the 51 Etna estates in the guide, 23 are in the area of Castiglione di Sicilia which is considered the ‘cradle’ of Nerello Mascalese, Nerello Cappuccio and Carricante. It is a unique area on Etna that stretches softly down the mountain for 35km towards Taormina.

“Preparing the guide was an intense and arduous task. Our idea was to bring together all the different realities in this wonderful land and offer wine lovers a complete and easy to consult tool to understand one of the most interesting winemaking areas in Italy,” Fabrizio Carrera said.

  
Guida ai vini dell’Etna
Etna Wine Guide
Cronachediguso.it editore
pp. 145 Euro 10