Eredi Di Maio's Affiu Etna Bianco Superiore: The wine I drank most frequently during my most recent visit to Mt Etna

Looking back over my notes and pictures from my attendance at ViniMilo 2025, I realized that, by a large margin, I had drunk more Affiu Etna Bianco Superiore than any other wine. And this consumption was a combination of organized tastings and informal meals at restaurants. I had obviously liked this wine because we kept on ordering it. Below is a series of pictures illustrating my encounters with the Affiu label over the course of the ViniMilo 2025 period.

The author with Andrea Di Maio
of Eredi Di Maio at ViniMilo 2025

Sharing a bottle of 2021 Affiu with Brandon
 at Milo Wine Bar on the evening of August 28, 2025

Affiu 2021 being tasted at the Vinimilo 2025
Etna Bianco Superiore super-tasting, September 1, 2025

Affiu at the ViniMilo 2025 "Young Guns" tasting,
September 7, 2025

Affiu tasted at lunch in Zafferana Etnea
 on September 9, 2025

Affiu tasted at lunch at Ristorante
Da Rinuccio, September 11, 2025

This wine is made by Eredi Di Maio and merits deeper exploration.

The family has been growing grapes on the volcano since 1867. The company literature indicates that Santo Di Maio, great-grandfather of the current generation, returned to Sicily from Argentina to continue cultivation of the family vineyard. During his tenure, he expanded both the size and production levels. Pre-Phylloxera Carricante and Nerello Mascalese were grown in that pioneering vineyard.

Santo passed management of the estate to his son Alfio who continued the tradition of excellent management of the patrimony. 

The estate began vinifying grapes in 2018 and produces wine within the following constraints:

• Only essential interventions
• Respect for nature
• Respect for the territories within which they operate.

Vineyards

The Eredi Di Maio vineyard presence on Milo is illustrated in the chart below.

The chart shows a total of six vineyards distributed over four of the eight Milo contrade. Three of these vineyards are sited in Contrada Caselle with one each in Rinazzo, Praino, and Volpare. Rinazzo is the oldest, planted back in 1867, followed by two of the Caselles in the 1920s, and the Volpare in 1947. The two remaining vineyards are relatively recent additions.

The norm for Eredi Di Maio is small vineyards, with none exceeding 1 ha in surface area. The total vineyard ha is 2.8 with an average of 0.56 ha/vineyard. Of the total 2.8 ha, 2.6 are planted to Carricante with the remainder Nerello Mascalese.

The trend has been to reduced plant density in Eredi Di Maio vineyards. The earliest vineyards were planted to 10,000 vines/ha while the most recent additions are approximately 7,000 vines/ha.

The estate uses copper to combat downy mildew and sulfur for powdery mildew. Sulfur also increases the effectiveness of copper against downy mildew.

Affiu Etna Bianco Superiore

Grapes for Affiu are soft-pressed and then fermented and matured in stainless steel tanks. The wine is further aged in bottle for 6 months prior to release on the market.

When I first tasted this wine during my 2024 ViniMilo visit, I described it as perfumed, with walnut and salinity on the nose. Lean but balanced. Spice. Great wine in need of time. In the "Young Guns" tasting at ViniMilo 2025, I described it as  follows: Lime, bruised apple, salinity, mint, honeyed, and with a slight medicinal quality. A beautiful nose. Orange on the palate. Enters easily and proceeds smoothly to a long, spicy finish. Mineral transit. Persistent as it relates to minerality. Elegant.

And, so, after the "Young Guns" tasting, I was further sold on this wine. My philosophy became, "if you see it, buy it."

This wine also has fans within the Milo grape-growing community. When I did my limited 2024 survey on the best Etna Bianco Superiores, Affiu received three mentions (the most). Further, it was described as follows:

A young winery with an old soul. The vineyards are very dated, partly a hundred years old, and give birth to wines of an absolute depth, of impeccable typicality and great quality. Bright colors that turn from straw to pale golden, nose of fresh, ripe white-fleshed fruit, orange blossom, honey, and hints of citrus. Sour, freschissimo sip, with supportive but never excessive alcohol content, very pleasant salinity. Very good even hours after opening the bottle. Excellent,

I concur.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Azienda di Rachele (Contrada Salice, Milo, Catania, Sicily) Etna Bianco Superiores 2023 and 2021: ViniMilo 2025 white-grape-identity Masterclass

The L’identità bianchista dell’Etna (The identity of the whites of Etna) ViniMilo 2025 Masterclass explored non-sequential vintages of Etna Bianco Superiores from leading producers such as Barone di Villagrande, Maugeri, Benanti, Iuppa, Rachele, and Terre di Nuna. I have previously reported on a number of these tastings and continue herein with Azienda di Rachele.

Azienda di Rachele is, like Azienda Agricola Iuppa, located within Milo's Contrada Salice but its vineyards do not span as wide an elevation range. Rachele's vineyard ranges between 550 and 700 m. 

Grapes have been grown on a core property for many generations  but it was only with the 2021 vintage that the decision was made to vinify some of the product for their own wine. I first tasted a Rachele wine at ViniMilo 2024 and was impressed by the humility of Rosario Raciti (the proprietor) and the quality of the wine.

As Rosario tells it, the core of the Rachele vineyard is "a small plot of land passed down through generations." He expanded on that small plot and, in 2013, decided to host a Carricante-only vineyard.  Once that vineyard was fully implemented he needed new challenges and began, in 2021, to vinify a part of the harvest. The first wine was released on to the market in 2023.

The soil on the property is sandy volcanic and the Carricante grapes are trained in the traditional Etna manner. Only top quality grapes are selected for the wine and these are hand-harvested into 20-kg crates. The grapes are destemmed and pressed and then fermented in neutral containers. The wine is matured in stainless steel tanks and further aged in bottle.

Tasting the Wines

The wines offered up for this tasting were drawn from the 2023 and 2021 vintages. A bottle shot and Brandon's vintage notes follow.

Brandon Tokash's vintage notes are as follows:

2023 -- The year of the mold; especially for the north slope. Milo was burning, hot, and dry. There was one day where there were major fires all around Milo with some of Iuppa's vineyard burnt. There was concern for smoke taint but we didn't taste any. A better vintage for Nerello than Carricante. I think that some of the freshness and acid was lost, especially at lower Milo altitudes. Stay with the high-elevation Carricante (above 800 m).

2021 — Another dry spring and summer with typical Milo rains a few weeks before and during harvest. If I remember, the 2021’s that we tasted was the vintage that we thought was better than the others. If that’s the case, the vintage was excellent.

As has been the practice in this series of tastings, the youngest vintage was tasted first. The 2023 Rachele EBS showed sweet white fruit, sage, minerality, spice, mint, and a savoriness on the nose. Lime on the palate along with a restrained salinity and minerality. Textured. Long, limey finish. Some black pepper on the finish.

The 2021 Rachele EBS showed herbs, a hint of sweet fruit, salinity, and minerality on the nose. Less intense on the nose than was the 2023. Green orange on the attack giving way to a savoriness. Mineral. Sapid. Dried herbs and faded lime.

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Both wines exhibited good quality. The 2021 was the first vintage for this estate and it has retained its integrity. The lowered intensity on the nose eon the '21 is probably related to age-related development and softening. I enjoyed both of these wines.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

The "best" Etna Bianco Superiores

The chart below shows an updated Etna bianco superiore database. 

I have begun a process of seeking to identify the best of the bunch by asking persons with the relevant expertise to give me a list of their top four Etna Bianco Superiores and the reasons why they are so ranked. Below I provide the information collected to date. This is, of course, an ongoing process.

Eredi di Maio's Affiu received three mentions while Vigna di Milo, Nuna, i Custodi's Imbris, and Barone di Villagrande's Contrada Villagrande received two mentions. Maugeri's Contrada Volpare, Foti's Palmento Caselle, Iuppa's Lindo, Gaetano Russo's Contrada Praino, Benanti's Pietra Marina, and Federico Curtaz's Etna Bianco Superiore all received one mention.

Eredi di Maio was described as "a young winery with an old soul. The vineyards are very dated, partly a hundred years old, and give birth to wines of an absolute depth, of impeccable typicality and great quality. Bright colors that turn from straw to pale golden, nose of fresh, ripe white-fleshed fruit, orange blossom, honey, and hints of citrus. Sour, feschissimo sip, with supportive but never excessive alcohol content, very pleasant salinity. Very good even hours after opening the bottle. Excellent."

For those favoring Barone di Villagrande's Superiore, they saw the issue thusly:

Barone di Villagrande, year after year, presents an unmistakable style of a version of Carricante from mature plants, with excellent agronomic care and an excellent winemaking style. Broad in its typical aromas of orange blossom, citrine notes,  and field herbs supported by an excellent balance between glycerine and vibrant acidity. Balanced taste and remarkable aging capacity. A signature wine.

A second supporter placed this wine alongside Terre di Nuna and Contrada Praino. "I think these superiores represent well the East side of Mount Etna. The wines are fresh, elegant, and mineral with big structure in the mouth and long life inside the bottle. I love to pair these wines with food because they clean the palate and enhance every taste."

Benanti's Pietra Marina was mentioned as a milestone among Etna's superiores. "Deep aromas on the nose of warm, comforting notes of herbs, hints of honey, citrine notes and hints of hydrocarbon with time. Enveloping, powerful and vertical taste, surprising in its evolution year after year. A must in the cellars of a true enthusiast."                             

Iuppa's Lindo "is the fruit of a careful selection of clusters that come from the largest, southern/northern district of Milo... a wine of blinding straw color with a well-defined territorial imprint. Crisp, yellow-fleshed fruit, herbaceous nose, iodine, lemon orange blossom and an unmistakable smokiness given by the soil coming from volcanic lapilli continuously erupted from the southeast crater of the volcano. Powerful and suave at the same time. Suitable for aging. Persistent and very pleasant. 

Foti's Vigna di Milo has bright acid but there is still a textured palate, a rounded edge but not due to any oak aging.

A Palmento Caselle disciple: "I remember Palmento Caselle being tightly wound and precise. Showing more acid than fruit but that will balance out over time and an understated salinity to wrap around the whole package. This is a bottle that will just continue to grow over the next 10 years. A terrific example of an Etna Bianco Superiore."

I had the distinct pleasure of tasting the vast majority of Superiore wines at the VinoMilo 2024 event titled Milo, il Carricante e l’Etna Bianco Superiore: contrade, produttori, biodiversità, sostenabilità — Quarta edizione and wondered if the organizers tipped their hands as to which they though were the best wines of the lot. A few points of note:

• Some of the top producers (Foti, for example) were not represented and producers with multiple Superiores did not submit their top wine(s).
• As I pointed out in an earlier post, Milo can be divided into three grape-growing zones (based on altitude): 500 - 650 m; 700 m; and 800 - 900 m. The fact seems to have been taken into consideration in allocating the Superiores between the four flights of the tasting: (i) With the exception of Primazappa, and Contrada Villagrande, the first two flights consist of wines drawn from the lowest and middle elevations. (ii) With the exception of Benanti’s Contrada Rinazzo and Contrada Villagrande, all of the Superiore wines in Flights 3 and 4 are drawn from the highest-elevation vineyards.
• As it relates to the contrada, all of the Superiore wines in Flight 4 were sourced from grapes grown in Contrada Caselle.

It has been my experience that tastings ramp up to a crescendo, with the most "desirable" wines coming later in the evening. If one follows this logic, the organizers seem to be pointing to the higher elevation wines as the most desirable and with a partucular focus on Contrada Caselle. No conclusions here. Just saying.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Milo (Catania, Sicily): Contrade, vineyards, and Superiore wines

Marco de Grazia (delleterrenere.com) makes on of the most cogent arguments for the current Mt Etna grape-growing architecture and Milo's place within that space.

For centuries and centuries the northern slopes of Etna have been recognized for the best red grapes in the area ... "That is why I established Tenuta delle Terre Nere here. Nevertheless, some specific areas of the eastern and southern areas of Etna attracted me greatly, whose ancient and recent history testified to excellent viticultural qualities. In short, I became particularly interested in in the viticulture of the smallest municipality of the eastern area, that of Milo. From the 18th century until a dozen years ago, only one company existed in Milo, and it was famous for its whites. And when the statutes of the DOC Etna were drawn up in 1968, only the whites of Etna were allowed to boast the epithet Superiore. In fact, as I see it, the microclimate of Milo makes the production of red wines unlikely, while that of rosés is interesting, and that of whites potentially admirable even if it requires special attention."

The average rainfall in Milo is double that of the northern and southern areas. Its exposures are mostly east-facing, often made difficult and shady by vast ravines. The steepness of the terraces of the entire municipality sees the sun forced to set very early in the shadow of the volcano. Furthermore, the climate is very humid, open as it is to the hot sirocco that, having crossed the Ionian Sean, blows directly onm the vineyards. So much so that it is not uncommon to find yourself wrapped in fog even on summer evenings. No, it is not a climate for red wines. But an extremely interesting one, even if challenging, for whites, which seem to appreciate its particularly fresh, humid and breezy nature.

Marco goes on to describe what he saw as the optimum vineyard location in Milo:

I was looking for the perfect altitude: not too high, to avoid a truly extreme climate; not too low, where excessive heat would negate the austere and sharp character of Milo wines that I had learned to admire. It also had to be well exposed to ensure consistent quality in such a difficult climate.

I have previously described the Milo physical environment at the broader level as well as at the level of the defined contrade. Herein I describe the contrada-level built environment and, specifically, the Superiore wines produced therefrom.

The chart below illustrates how Milo grapegrowers have sought to utilize the physical environment in the deployment of their grapevines. The chart shows a marked preference for planting within Contrada Caselle with 7 producers having put down roots there. Salice and Volpare follow with four producers each, Rinazzo and Praino, with three each, and Fornazzo and Villagrande with one each. I could find no producers in Pianogrande.

There are a number of Multi-contrada producers within the comune: Maugeri (Volpare and Praino), Tenuta di Fessina (Caselle and Volpare) and Eredi di Maio (Caselle, Praino, Rinazzo, and Volpare). There are also a number of producers with interests outside the comune: Tenuta di Fessina, Benanti, Pietradolce, iCustodi, iVigneri, Terra Costantino, and Delle Terre Nere. For many of these producers, Milo is part of a multi-pronged strategy of wine production on Etna.

The average vineyard size in Milo is as follows:

• Caselle -- 1 ha
• Fornazzo -- 1 ha
• Praino -- 1.13 ha
• Rinazzo -- 2 ha (should be noted that the total ha is about 10 of which Benanti owns 7)
• Salice -- 7
• Volpare -- 3.1.

Not all of the producers identified in the above chart are currently producing Superiore wines. The Superiore requirements called for the grapes to be grown within the bounds of the comune and for a minimum of 80% Carricante. As shown in the chart below, only three (Aurora, Contrada Villagrande, and Milus) of the identified Superiore wines are not made in purity.

In terms of elevation, 11 of the wines are produced from grapes grown in the 800 - 900 m zone (as identified in my physical environment post) while five are made from grapes grown in the 700 - 800 m zone and the remaining five in the 500 - 650 m zone. 

Eredi di Maio is a multi-contrade wine but most of its vineyards are in Contrada Caselle.

I tasted most of these wines at a VinoMilo2024 event titled Milo, il carricante e l'Etna Bianco Superiore. I will report on that tasting in a follow-up post.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Milo (Catania, Sicily) context: The physical environment

In this post I continue to provide context on the comune of Milo. I kicked off this series with an overview of the history and economics of the comune and continue herein with the physical aspects of the winemaking environment.

Milo is the only area within the DOC where Etna Bianco Superiore can be produced. The 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). This comune, as described by Salvo Foti, lies between the mountain and the sea and the warm air from the latter meets with the cold air from the former over Milo with the result being significant rainfall (average 1500mm/year) over the entire growing area.

In addition to the rain, growers have to contend with year-round winds which can attain speeds of as much as 50 miles/hour. There are beneficial aspects to the winds, however. Moisture dries out rapidly, keeping vine diseases at bay and allowing vineyards to make it through the growing season with only sulfur and copper sprays. 

According to Salvo, the sea and wind combine to imbue the Carricante grown on this side of the mountain with a saltiness that is not evident in Carricantes grown on the north face. According to Benjamin North-Spencer (New Wines of Mt Etna), the soils have a high mineral content but, in addition, breezes coming in off the sea are trapped at altitude and the salt moisture they contain come back to earth with the rain. These mineral, saline wines are endowed with incredible acidity and longevity and, if produced well, can age for 15 to 20 years.

The Valle del Bove, the horseshoe-shaped structure that dominates on this side of the volcano, is, according to Ben, the original shield volcano's crater. This crater blew the top (15,000 years ago, according to Ben; 8,000 and 60,000 years according to other sources) off the mountain and then fell back in on itself. It collected snowfall from the mountain, forming a glacial lake and decomposing the volcanics that were the core of the seven volcanoes that comprised the Elliptico (The decomposition of volcanic material forms allophane, a type of primordial clay, which is sticky for nutrients and holds water temporarily so that it can be accessed by the vine roots. The allophanes, due to their construct, provide a much greater surface area for nutrient attachment than does other more traditional clays.).

The eastern flank of the volcano was involved in a landslide that deposited water and eroded volcanics over the slope where we find Milo located today. These eroded volcanics were distributed over a very steep and plateaued environment. 

The soil is sandy and of volcanic origin with a substantial portion of ripiddu (lapilli and eruptive pumice) intermixed with red soils from the Sahara Desert deposited here by the aforementioned winds. The sandy soils drain rapidly, forcing the roots to dig deep in search of moisture and nutrients. 

The EtnaDOC Consorzio recently introduced a new DOC map with 142 contrade, eight of which are located in the Milo comune. The map, with an exploded Milo section, is illustrated in the chart below.

Information source: Ugo Nicosia (Marketing and Communications Director, Azienda Agricola Iuppa) communication with Brandon Tokash

This map is a work in progress and will be updated with info as our knowledge base expands. That being said, the differing elevations stipulated in each contrada aligns with a vineyard location. Based on the data, the soils are similar across contrade, except for some increased soil complexity in areas proximate to the path of the ancient landslide. The key contributor -- from the physical aspect -- to differentiation among wines made from grapes grown in these contrade are elevation effects. As pointed out in the previous chart, both the visual and olfactory wine profiles at Milo are affected by changes in altitude.    

©Wine -- Mise en abyme