Carricante-Based wines from the eastern and southern slopes of Mt. Etna at Contrada dell'Etna

Our going-in strategy for this year's Contrada dell'Etna was to drink only the white wines from Etna's east and southeast flanks in order to imprint the characteristics of those wines on our senses. Our tasting team included Brandon Tokash, Lidia Rizzo, Sue Tolson, Parlo, and me.  The map below shows the coverage area of interest.

Climate in the area of interest
As shown on the below chart, growing conditions in the east and southeast differs from the conditions in the north and southwest.

Derived from Nesto and di Savino

The southeast and eastern slopes are unprotected from the autumn and winter rains but the combination of rapid runoff and early morning sun contribute to their attractiveness as growing regions (especially for whites).

The volcano's southeast flank experiences markedly different climatic conditions than north-slope-resident wineries. First, it is warmer in the southeast than in the north; 4 to 7 degrees warmer, as a matter of fact.

Second, with no protective layer of mountains, the region bears the full brunt of the wind and rain coming in off the Ionian Sea. In the fall and spring, dry winds form over North Africa, pick up moisture over the Mediterranean, and barrel into the Sicilian coast at upwards of 50 miles an hour. These winds are called Scirocco and an event can last from 1/2 day to several days. The wind makes it easier to farm organically as it helps to keep mold at bay.

Third, the southeast is unprotected from the autumn and winter rains but the combination of rapid runoff and early morning sun contribute to its attractiveness as a growing region 9especially for whites).

Tasting the Wines
Contrada dell'Etna day was bright and sunny and the crowds took full advantage of the conditions.

The organizers had divided the participating wineries into the broad categories shown below.The wines of interest fell into the Sud-Est category which included producers in the east, southeast, and southwest. The wines that we tasted are indicated by stars next to the producer names.

The stars indicate the producer wines tasted as
part of this exercise

The first producer that we visited was Monterosso. The grapes for this producer's wines are sourced from a 5-ha vineyard on the southeast flank of the mountain. The soil here is composed of alternating layers of sand and pumice stone. It has a reddish color -- a result of its high iron content -- and is light, airy, and porous. It is also rich in potassium, phosphorous, and magnesium.

We tasted two wines from this producer: a 2017 Etna Bianco DOC (90% Carricante, 10% Catarratto) and Crater (100% Carricante. The former is from 700 m elevation while the latter is at 600 m. The Etna Bianco was big on the nose with sulfur, minerality, and white peaches and a florality. Acid and salinity on the palate. Dry finish. The Crater was more refined, almost austere. Greater minerality and less salinity.

Aurelio Marconi of Monterosso

Feudo Cavalieri is located on the southwest flank of the mountain with its Carricante grapes drawn from vineyards (ungrafted old plus newly planted) located between 950 and 990 m on the slope. The "land is composed of volcanic sands and 'ripiddu,' rich in minerals that tend to be acidic, well exposed and ventilated."

Its Etna Bianco 2016 was still on the lees (the wines are normally kept on the lees for 2 years). It was aromatic, with minerality, salinity, and citrus fruit dominant. The Etna Bianco 2017 was a tank sample and reminded me of dank charcoal. Less balanced in terms of salinity and minerality. The Millimetri 2014 was mineral, herbaceous, oily and chalky on the nose and those characteristics followed through to the palate.

La Gelsomina is located on the northeastern flank of the mountain. Its Bianca dell Contea is 97% Carricante and 3% Catarratto made from grapes grown at 550m. The soil is loose, of a volcanic nature, and rich in potassium. The 2016 Bianca dell Contea showed minerality and herbs on the nose and was all minerality on the palate. Salinity and acidity less than all wines tasted previously. Conversely, the most mineral wine tasted up to this point. Short, drying finish. The 2017 was very floral, with stone fruit and perfumed citrus. Mineral.

The Ciro Biondi grapes for its white wines are grown in Contrada Ronzini in the Municipality of Trecastagni on the southeast flank of the mountain. The soil here is volcanic with red pumice and elevation ranges between 640 and 700 m. The grapes for the Outis and Pianta wines are grown at 650 m.

Outis and Pianta are field blends of Carricante, Catarratto, and Minella with the latter vinified in wood and the former in stainless steel. The Outis showed white peach, white flowers, citrus, and minerality while the Pianto showed minerality and lime and appeared somewhat thin.

The Federico Curtaz Gamma is made from 100% Carricante grapes sourced from Milo on the eastern flank. I tasted both the 2016 and 2017 versions of this wine and was left wanting. The 2016 showed salinity and citrus but seemed light-bodied while the 2017 showed lemon and minerality.

Vini Eudes is located in Trecastagni on the southeast flank of the mountain. The winery produces an 80% Carricante wine called Bianco di Monte and a 100% Carricante. The former had a perfumed nose with traces of salinity, minerality, and lime skin. Precise and focused, a food-loving wine. Lemony lime on palate giving away to a mineral, saline finish.

The Carricante wine showed a limestone minerality, sulfur, creaminess, and salinity on the nose. Not as impressive on the palate. Short finish.

Like Feudo Cavaliere, Azienda Falcone is located on the southwest flank of the mountain in the town of Santa Maria di Licodia. The wine is 90% Carricante with the source grapes being grown at 900m. The wine had a stony minerality, creaminess, salinity, and citrus notes. Clean on the palate. A fair wine.

As is the case for the Santorini Assyrtikos, Carricante-based wines from the east to south flanks of Etna are characterized by salinity, minerality, and acidity and, at its optimum, these characteristics meld extremely well. These characteristics also allow the wines to age well (based on my experiences drinking aged Benanti Pietra Marina wines). While the characteristics of the wines are consistent, the quality of individual wines will vary based on winemaking practices, elevation, soil composition, and other related factors.

I love Assyrtiko. I also love well made Carricante-based wines from the east and southeast slopes of Mt. Etna. I will undertake a comprehensive review of the whites from the northern slope at some point in the future.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

The major Etna DOC grape varieties

The Etna DOC has established the following wine and labeling requirements:

• Etna DOC Rosso -- to be made from the indigenous varieties Nerello Mascalese (> 80%) and Nerello Cappuccio (< 20%) plus up to 10% of other non-aromatic grape varieties (red or white)
• Etna DOC Rosato -- same as for Rosso
• Etna DOC Bianco -- to be made from Carricante (> 60%), Catarratto (< 40%), and up to 15% of other non-aromatic grapes such as Minella or Trebbiano
• Etna DOC Bianco Superiore -- to be made from Carricante (> 80%) and Catarratto or Minnella (< 20%). All grapes to be sourced exclusively from the area of Milo on the eastern side of the volcano.

I continue to flesh out my understanding of the Etna DOC viticultural  environment with the following post on the main grape varieties included in the DOC specification.

White Varieties
Carricante
Carricante is an ancient white variety -- prevalent on Mt Etna's eastern face -- that yields low-potassium, low-pH, high acidity wines (benanti.it). The bunches are of average length at ripening, with medium-sized berries of a green-yellowish color.

Carricante (tenutaterrenere.com)

Frank Cornelissen, one of the leading winemakers on the mountain, has historically viewed the variety as too acidic to produce world-class wine. Ian d'Agata, author of Native Wine Grapes of Italy, on the other hand, is quoted in Szabo's Volcanic Wines thusly: "potentially one of Italy's greatest cultivars ..." that "... when properly tended to, yields wines of great longevity and intense mineral character."

According to Salvo Foti, long-famed viticulturist, Carricante vines have to be somewhere between 10- and 15-years old in order to begin giving great concentration. Salvo said that both his father and grandfather worked Carricante and the wine's high acidity was extremely important in the days before widespread access to refrigeration. The wine is also great for raw fish, the main dish in the area.

There is a saltiness in the east side Carricante that is lacking in wines made from grapes grown on the north side of the mountain. For Salvo, typicity is the key; and he sees Carricante as the grape for this place.

There are some 100% Carricante wines on the market but the grape is usually the primary varietal in an Etna DOC wine. It is also used, at lower elevations, to lighten the color and body of Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappucchio blends.

Catarratto
Catarratto is a high-yielding, low-acidity Sicilian grape variety. It is the main grape used in the production of Marsala but on Etna is primarily blended with Carricante. There are two clones -- Commune and Lucido -- with the former having more acid and less sugar than the latter as well as being the clone of choice on the mountain.

Catarratto (etnawine.it)

Catarratto does not engender as much discussion on the mountain as does Carricante.

Minnella
Minnella is a white-berry vine that is indigenous to Etna where it is mostly found in old vineyards interplanted with Nerello Mascalese and Carricante. This is an early ripening variety.

Reds
Nerello Mascalese
Nerello Mascalese is the most important variety on Mt Etna. In older vineyards in can be found interplanted with Nerello Cappucchio while newer plantings position these varieties into separate rows or blocks to facilitate cellar rather than field blends.

Nerello Mascalese (tenutaterrenere.com)

The vine is vigorous and is readily affected by:

• Vintage conditions
• Cultivation area
• Training system
• Density
• Cultural practices.

The wines from the variety are mildly sweet and "distinctively tannic." Szabo compares it to Pinot Noir and Nebbiolo both in color and the ability to reflect even minor variations in terroir.

Benanti sees the best training system for the variety as follows:

• Free standing bush with 2 - 3 branches per tree
• High vine density -- 6000 - 9000 vines /ha
• Spacing of 1 x 1 or 1.25 x 1.25.

Nerello Cappuccio
This variety's medium-to-small-sized bunches and medium-sized grapes produce wines with good acid and tannin levels. The variety buds and ripens earlier than Nerello Mascalese with the former characteristic bringing the negative effects of late spring frosts into play.

Used primarily in a blend with Nerello Mascalese, this grape brings color and perfume to the blend as well as serving to soften up some of the harder edges of its partner.


©Wine -- Mise en abyme

The significance of Contrade in Etna wine production and labeling

The Etna DOC, brought into being by a 1968 Decree, was the first of its type in Sicily and it established wine and labeling requirements as follows:

• Etna DOC Rosso -- to be made from the indigenous varieties Nerello Mascalese (> 80%) and Nerello Cappuccio (< 20%) plus up to 10% of other non-aromatic grape varieties (red or white)
• Etna DOC Rosato -- same as for Rosso
• Etna DOC Bianco -- to be made from Carricante (> 60%), Catarratto (< 40%), and up to 15% of other non-aromatic grapes such as Minella or Trebbiano
• Etna DOC Bianco Superiore -- to be made from Carricante (> 80%) and Catarratto or Minella (< 20%). All grapes to be sourced exclusively from the area of Milo on the eastern side of the volcano.

The decree also named the 20 communities which would comprise the DOC production zone.

A ministerial decree dated September 27, 2011 has updated the requirements of the 1968 decree as regards production zones and labeling requirements. The decree lists 133 contrade with defined borders within the DOC and allows for placement of contrada names on the label if all the grapes used in the wine were sourced from the subject contrada. In this post I will define the contrada and its significance to winemaking in the Etna region.

In their explanation of the formation of contrade, Nesto and di Savino (The World of Sicilian Wine) state thusly:

Lava flows radiate down from Etna's summit, more or less, like the spokes of a wheel from a hub ... All Etna soil rests on or directly derives from lava that has flowed and hardened for thousands of years, along with ejected pumice, lapilli, and windblown volcanic ash. There are lava flows upon lava flows upon lava flows. The hardened flows on the surface each have a different age and different soil constituents.

Vinifranchetti.com describes the same process a little more colorfully and, further, relating it to territories and wine:

Thousands of mouths across a fifty-kilometer diameter on Mount Etna have spit lava from every different depth under the earth, covering the surface of the volcano where vines take root. Flowing lava -- descending sometimes dense and slow, at times fast as water - eventually stops, spreading and hardening at various altitudes. After cooling for many years, these flatter areas over the centuries become established properties, each one producing a different taste of wine because of the different mineral origin of their soils and, more importantly, because of the grain that the lava had broken into during its cooling process: sand, gravel, powder, or rock. Under the same old names the properties became territorial subdivisions called contrade, and, with regards to wine, they represent Etna's own version of a cru.

Contrade as territorial designations have gone the way of the dodo bird but not so its relevance for wine. According to Nesto and di Savino, of the cadre of new winemakers to breach the Etna walls in the early 2000s, Marc de Grazia was the first to "promote the connection between Burgundy Crus and Etna contradas and between contradas and and lava flows." Further, say the authors, "Certain Etna producers support contrada labeling because it connects Etna to the concept of terroir and, from a marketing standpoint, models Etna on Burgundy, the wine zone with which the concept of terroir is most associated."

But de Gracia sees the new Minesterial decree in an even more brilliant light (tenutaterrenere.com):

I have no hesitation in defining the achievement of historic significance for the appellation. Not only has it reinstated and classified identities that had traditionally been accepted for centuries. It has laid the foundations upon which future generations, strong of a deeper experience, may define and circumscribe still more complex subdivisions, breaking down the just established crus into fractions whose boundaries we can sometimes already gleam ... Just as Burgundy can proudly display its tantalizing variations of Pinot Noir, so Etna will now be able to offer the subtle nuances of its Nerello Mascalese.

Salvatore Giuffrida, the consulting agronomist for Valentini, Gambino and the IRW, cautions against this focus on the mineral content in the lava flows. Speaking to Nesto and di Savino, he indicated that exposure, soil depth, and elevation had greater impacts on vines and wine flavor than did the mineral differences between lava flows.

Winemakers across the region have hearkened to the practice and advice of early adapters such as de Graci and Franchetti and are producing contrada/cru wines in greater numbers. The table below shows a small sampling of the contrade that can be found on Etna wine labels today.

Frank Cornelissen ID of his contrada grape sources.

Table 1: A Selection of Etna Contrade.

Cru	Estate	# of Parcels	Size (ha)	Elevation (m)	Soil	Notes
Calderara Sottano	Delle Terre Nere	4		600 - 700	Rockiest cru in the appellation; black volcanic pumice carpets vineyard
Guardiola	Delle Terre Nere	2		800 - 900	Very poor soil; volcanic sand mixed with basaltic pebbles and traces of ash	Both vineyards steeply sloped and slightly terraced
	Passopisciaro			800 - 1000	On the edge of the flow from the 1947 eruption
Feudo di Mezzo	Delle Terre Nere	2			Loose, deep volcanic ash with small volcanic pebbles	Terraced, traditional albarello plantings
	Frank Cornelissen			640		Porcaria Vineyard
	Girolamo Russo		1
Santo Spirito	Delle Terre Nere	2			Loose, deep, fine, jet-black volcanic ash
Arcuria	Graci	1	25	600 - 660	Brown rich texture of volcanic origin; pH-neutral; non-calcareous; from rich to very rich in iron; high nitrogen content	NM (15 ha), Carricante (1.5 ha), Catarratto (1 ha)
Barbabecchi	Graci			1000 - 1100	do.	2 ha of pre-Phylloxera NM
Monte Serra	Benanti			500	Sandy, volcanic, very rich in minerals with subacid reaction.
Ronzini	Biondi	2		640 - 700	Volcanic soil, red pumice	Parcels are named Chianta and Cisterna Fuori
San Nicolo’	Biondi			640	do.
Barbabechi	Frank Cornelissen			910
Chiusa Spagnola	Frank Cornelissen			620
Monte Colla	Frank Cornelissen			760
San Lorenzo	Girolamo Russo		12	700 - 800	Young, porous, rich volcanic rock with outcropping of older bedrock
Feudo	Girolamo Russo		6
Chiappemacine	Passopisciaro		1.2	550	Lies on the last outreach of Mount Etna’s lava; limestone bed beneath
Porcaria	Passopisciaro		1.5	650	Frail sheet of lava that splinters underfoot	Considered Mt Etna’s most famous and sought after contra
Sciaranuova	Passopisciaro		1	850	On relatively new, 200-yr-old lava flow that has turned into thick gravel
Rampante	Passopisciaro		1.4	1000	Sandy character

Sources: Tenutaterrenere.com; vinifranchetti.com; ibiondi.com; graci.eu; frankcornelissen.it.

A few points of note:

• As is the case for Burgundy, many of the crus are farmed by multiple estates. In the table above, both Delle Terre Nere and Passopisciaro farm on Contrada Guardiola while three estates farm on Feudo di Mezzo.
• The label on a vineyard may not always be at the contrada level. It could be a vineyard within a cru or a brand name. In the table above Ciro Biondi has two wines named Chianta and Cisterna but these both happen to be vineyard names of plots within the Ronzini Contrada. Further, while not shown here, there is an area called Pietramarina but the Benanti-labeled Pietra Marina is made from grapes sourced from Milo on the east side of the volcano.
• There are still some gaps in the interpretations of these conventions. For example, Cornelissen refers to a Porcaria Vineyard in the Feudo di Mezzo contrada while Passopisciaro speaks of a Contrada Porcaria. 

We will be especially vigilant in seeking out these contrada-related differences in the wines we taste later this week.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme