SommSelect Editorial Director David Lynch is back on Sicily’s Mount Etna, where the Scamacca del Murgo family produces a rosé sparkler from Nerello Mascalese that is, in a word, unbelievable.
I try to go easy on the hyperbole in these offers, but this wine isn’t just a well-made, well-priced bottle: It’s a pretty major achievement. ‘Champagne method’ sparkling wines are, as we all know, not cheap to produce. They are more labor-intensive, and require tying up inventory for years before the wine is finally released. How the Scammaca del Murgo family manages to put this hand-made, Champagne-method sparkler—crafted from Etna’s Nerello Mascalese grape and aged a full two years on its lees before final bottling—on the market for less than $30 is beyond me. But it’s not my job to figure out how they do it; it’s my job to celebrate the fact that they did. Over my many years in restaurants, this wine was one of the great by-the-glass pours and a bottle that made me look smart every time I served it. (This is the same producer, by the way, whose delicious Etna Rosso was so popular that our site almost crashed fulfilling the orders.) If you need an over-achieving sparkler in quantity for an event, or just want true Champagne quality at a more ‘everyday’ price, this is your wine. It’s phenomenal.
As we’ve noted in previous offers, the Scammaca del Murgo family is one of Mount Etna’s longer-term tenants. Baron Emanuele Scammaca del Murgo, a longtime Italian diplomat, decided to re-dedicate his family’s property to wine production back in 1981, a time when Etna wine was little talked-about—most of what was produced from the ancient vineyards here was sold to cooperatives for bulk wine. In the eighties, there were maybe a half-dozen serious commercial producers in the area, but of course it’s been a bona-fide gold rush since then; these days there are more than 100 producers of Etna wine, with larger Sicilian wine concerns and others from outside the zone clamoring to get a piece of the action.
The still-erupting Etna volcano is among the few pockets of Europe untouched by phylloxera, and its soils of black ash and pumice stone are planted mostly with old, head-trained bush vines called alberelli (“little trees”). Vineyard altitudes on the volcano reach up to 1,000 meters, making it some of the highest-elevation viticulture in Europe and the only ‘cool’ region of Sicily, which otherwise has more in common with North Africa than much of mainland Italy when it comes to climate. The local Nerello Mascalese grape, the driving force of Etna reds, has rightly invited comparisons to Pinot Noir from Burgundy, and, as expressed in sparkling form, it delivers a great mix of bright fruit and smoky savor.
Sourcing 100% Nerello Mascalese from their high-altitude vineyards in Zafferana Etnea, on the eastern slopes of the volcano—a less populous area of wine production compared to the more densely planted north slope—the Murgos macerate the grapes on their skins for about 24 hours to extract the delicate salmon-pink color, then produce the wine in the exact same manner as Champagne (metodo classico is the Italian term for ‘Champagne method,’ wherein the second fermentation is carried out in the bottle). This wine was aged on its lees (the spent yeast cells that collect in the neck of the bottle) for two years before it was disgorged and re-corked for sale.
Murgo’s Brut Rosé is always a vintage-dated wine, and this latest release is a model of consistency: The color is a pale salmon-pink with coppery highlights, and the aromas mix dried cherry, red currant, strawberry, melon, pink peppercorn and a whiff of smoke. Perhaps it’s the volcanic soil but there’s a pronounced mineral savor here, especially on the finish, and great structure—not only is it an exceptionally refreshing apéritif to sip with some prosciutto and melon, it would absolutely stand in for rosé Champagne at the dinner table. Serve this in all-purpose white wine stems or open-mouthed flutes at 40-45 degrees. Start off a spectacular summer dinner with this wine paired with a Sicilian-style tuna
crudo, or, if you’ve got a larger event coming up, blow minds
en masse with it. It’s the real deal.
— D.L.
