Passopisciaro Archives - Uncorked and CultivatedUncorked and Cultivated

Mount Etna, Sicily’s spectacular volcano, is home to luxury wine growing. The mountain villages, known here as contrade, on its northern side, are excellent participants in the move towards fineness in red wine.

You see you need an address from these villages: Passopisciaro, Randazzo, Castiglione di Sicilia, Linguaglossa or Solicchiata to be an Etnean player in the steady race for wine fame. This is nerello mascalese country.

Wines from volcanic regions such as this high part of Sicily are on trend. They are excellent participants in the move towards fineness in red wine.

Italian entrepreneur Andrea Franchetti bought an old run-down winery (about 200 yo), last used at the time in 1947, which he renovated in 2002, and now our tasting tour party is drinking Passopisciaro wines there.

Icon wine Franchetti- a petit verdot-coda volpe blend

Icon-Franchetti- serious deep tannin, petit verdot-cesanese d’affile blend

The house vineyard, at 800m up the mountain looks a treat, thousands of silver flashers repel birds; harvest is just starting, the chardonnay is off, having malo-lactic fermentation (in a warmed room) and the nerello mascalese is about to arrive to be crushed as 2016 red.

Our Sicily wine tours take guests through the villages of Etna, offering introduction-only visits to wineries, only some open to the public. If you’d like to find out more about this exclusive guided experience for lovers of wine and food, you can call me direct on +61 427 705 391 or email denisew@uncorkedandcultivated.com.au.

We are at Passopisciaro to be greeted by their affable marketer, Letizia Patane whose forebears made wine on the mountain for the past century. And as she expresses, “Etna as a production region is an island within an island, though a high, cool climate one.”

So we get the immediate impression the place is seen by local makers to be entirely different from production regions elsewhere on the island without black, rocky, knarled and moon-like landscapes.

We hear the only white wine of Passo is chardonnay (an exceptional world example), and that there are red vineyard plantings at varying elevations (500-1000m).

The higher you grow nerello the finer the wine (read that as more linear texture, less fullness), the later and harder to ripen and be fully ripe. At about 800m proper growth of red grapes is halted. Nerello in dialect means light black and wine colour is similar.

We taste the contrada Rampante (700 m) and contrada Chiappemacine (500m) among the five; Porciara, Sciaranouva and Guardiola.

PASSOPISCIARO DRINKS IGP

Passobianco 2015 is the famed chardonnay, such a good drink, fermented and aged in big barrels (700-2000 litre), so little oak shows, lovely green, spearmint fruit, never fat, overt or stonefruit like, taut, trimmed to the bone of acidity, totally linear and mineralising in the mouth. A triumph. Harvested during 20 passes on sunny days when the diurnal swing can be 25 degrees.

Passopisciaro age chardonnay in large oak

Chardonnays made this way are unusual in Australia though the technique is very sound. It minimises the influence of oak in today’s sommelier-led revolution where anything ‘apparently artifical’ does not go down. Released next February.

Passorosso 2014 is the estate blend of wines not reserved for the single vineyard contrade bottlings (specific elevations too). This is good; lovely fresh aromatics of the mountain herbs; laurel, bay and a swish of black fruits, lithe, light bodied, long flavoured. The 100% nerello mascalese Passo is known for, seen as a first level wine, not an introductory wine.

Passopisciaro’s Passorosso nerello mascalese level 1

Passopisciaro R 2014 is a single contrada vineyard selection from Ramparte; the high elevation gives more linearity than body, and bright acidity keeps the taste humming along. Nice wine, understated, long liver, 7-15 years’ potential even at 15% alcohol.

Passopisciaro -Contrada Rampante single vineyard nerello

Passopisciaro Contrada Ramparte –single vineyard nerello mascalese

Passopisciaro C 2014 is the next tasted single vineyard wine from lower elevation, the Chiappemacine vineyard; more the mouthful of nerello showing more body, a direct result of richness derived from warmer ripening conditions in the same year. Great on black fruits.

Passopisciaro Chiappemacine — single vineyard nerello mascalese

This is outstanding wine country but like any region where the benefits are great (outstanding wines), the growing process and more important, the ripening phase is very exacting to extract great nerello.

Passopisciaro climb that ripening peak each harvest without extravagant winemaking.

Touring Sicily on wine and food exploration turned into an adventure – as I expected.

There were grapes to discover. They were relatively new to an enduring Aussie palate but oh so ancient to the Sicilians in the know.

And the number of vineyard investments, many non-Sicilian, are growing steadily as time passes is a sign of more prosperity to come.

A quick look at the vineyard landscape would not suggest an inviting environment for cultivating its natural red inhabitants, mainly nerello mascalese and its lesser cousin nerello capuccio.

Over eons the volcano Etna above has showered the countryside with both eruptive lava, and sometimes daily doses of ash powder.

The vine environment looks more lunar than viticultural – uninviting, cactus-strewn, rugged, craggy laval monuments sited between, amongst and encircling some vineyard sites. Lava rock is the fence of choice.

This has not denied Etnan development in the least; the lava weathers well, the soils are limiting but presumably sufficiently fertile. The local water is certainly mineralised!

Viticulture is not new here, but is undergoing rejuvenation of the same varieties which have existed for over a century, or more, and probably since antiquity, given the past Roman and Greek influences.

The best influence is the modern thinking: forget the crazy DOC/DOCG system founded by traditionalists and therefore held to be inflexible, and labelling as IGT (Sicilia IGT) indicates contemporary, real-world Sicilian wine (the variety is revealed).

So the process of recognising “crus” or the Sicilian equivalent as “contrade” around the Etna DOC is accelerating nicely, with a greater recognition also according to elevation, starting at 600 m, extending to 1000 m.

Obviously there is greater viticultural risk ripening nerellos at 1000 m, protracted harvest dates, slow times to physiological ripeness, while the few examples I tasted demonstrate greater aromatic character than their equivalents grown at lower heights.

Contrade (crus) of Castiglione di Sicilia

Passopisciaro’s tasting host Letizia Patane presented three 2010 nerello mascalese from differing contrade (there are four):

Rampante of 2 ha (1000 m), Sciaranouva, meaning new lava flow site, these vines are 50 years going older, (800 m) and Porcaria, meaning ugly thing.

To find Passopisciaro-go up the hill!

These wines are sold as single vineyard contrade.

Ramparte showed a lot of flowers, roses, small floral notes, attractive cool-grown influence, sweet in the mouth (the only one to do so), long in fruitiness, distinctive acid and tannin-acid balance; Sciaranouva showed funk (natural yeast effect), some oak aromas, volumes of nose, then black fruits palate, fine and long; Porcaria showed red fruits on nose, black fruits on palate, warming alcohol, yet retains its elegance.

Ramparte contrade-single vineyard nerello

What is the taste anatomy of nerello mascalese. Not a heavily coloured varietal wine, in sync with pinot nero or nebbiolo there. The nose aromatics range from red cherry, black cherry, wild yeast effects, tobacco, earth, spearmint and a range of herbal nuances.

Palate: never full bodied, closer to light-bodied, more textured with a length of flavour which needs to be supported by drying tannin and rising acidity (nebbiolo similarities), oak is subliminal and hardly detectable; minerality on finish is a given. Savouriness.

Sensations in this varietal rise when tasted while eating; in drinking solo the flavours are present but the tannins will often appear unbalanced.

So here is a process for enjoying Etna IGT varietals.

Peter Scudamore-Smith is a Brisbane-based Master of Wine, winemaker and educator www.uncorkedandcultivated.com.au