SommSelect Editorial Director David Lynch celebrates a southern Italian original, whose Etna reds (and whites) continue to be standard-setters in this renowned terroir.
Before the wines of Sicily’s Mount Etna were the talk of the town—before winemakers from far and wide started arriving en masse on its ashy slopes—there was Benanti. I’ve said this before (when we offered Benanti’s electrifying Etna Bianco a while back), but it’s worth repeating: This estate, founded in 1988, was making great Etna wine when no one (myself included) was talking about the place. Now that everyone is, and excitedly, there are many shiny new Etnean toys to play with, but we mustn’t sleep on Benanti: the wines are just too good! Today’s 2015 Etna Rosso is plush, perfumed, evocative, and in today’s somewhat inflated market, seriously underpriced—all the things we love here at SommSelect. Owing at least in part to the generous 2015 vintage, this bottling has more power and perfume than anyone has a right to expect at this price point, but also a velvety texture and pitch-perfect balance that makes it a joy to drink. I couldn’t ask for anything more—this stuff is supple, sexy, highly expressive of its place, and priced to acquire in quantity. Keep a case (or more) of this handy and you’ll be very well served for the foreseeable future; its combination of Burgundy-esque versatility and sheer, sunny deliciousness is tough to beat!
When I first visited Sicily in the late-1990s, I was somewhat oblivious to what was happening on Etna, even as legends-in-the-making like Salvo Foti (Benanti’s longtime enologist) were crafting magical reds from the local Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio varieties. It’s a source of embarrassment for me, frankly, that I wasn’t plugged into the Etna scene sooner, like Giuseppe Benanti was: he founded his family winery originally as a hobby project in 1988, and has since handed it over to his twin sons, Salvino and Antonio. As detailed in a
Wine Spectator article from last year, Salvino and Antonio Benanti have doubled down on the indigenous grapes and old vines of Etna, re-focusing a company that had grown a little unwieldy with vineyard holdings elsewhere in Sicily. The family property is still centered around an ancient stone winery structure on the eastern slopes of the volcano, in the village of Viagrande. Although they’ve since planted newer vineyards, most of Benanti’s vineyards contain old vines trained in the “bush,” or
alberello (“little tree”) style that prevails on Etna. Grapes for this ‘entry-level’ rosso are sourced from estate vineyards ranging in elevation from 450-900 meters across a variety of expositions on the north, southeast, and southwestern slopes of the volcano. Soils are, of course, a mix of black volcanic ash and pumice stones—the remnants of lava flows that are still a semi-regular occurrence on this still-active volcano.
Etna is just an incredible place to make wine, and completely incongruous with the rest of Sicily, with its relentlessly hot, dry climate and more-fertile soils. Etna is in many ways a “continental” terroir in the heart of the Mediterranean, and its wines reflect their cool-climate origins. Not that there’s any lack of ripeness here—the intense luminosity at these higher elevations sees to that—but the longer growing season ensures that acidity remains fresh and wines maintain balance. Today’s 2015 has a nice core of ripe black cherry fruit, very plush, ripe tannins, and a slightly deeper color than some of the lighter-weight Etna reds we’ve offered recently. It is comprised of 80% Nerello Mascalese, with its Pinot Noir-ish perfume and structure, and 20% Nerello Cappuccio, which lends amplitude and color. It was fermented and aged mostly in stainless steel, with about 20% of the wine aged in used French oak barriques for 8-10 months before final blending and bottling.
In the glass, the 2015 is a vibrant ruby red moving to crimson and pink at the rim, with a seductive nose that leaves no doubt about the wine’s volcanic origins: mingling with notes of black cherry, raspberry, black currant, and blood orange are a faint whiff of smoke and a dark, savory, crushed-rock minerality. Medium-plus in body and blessed with sweet, velvety tannins, the wine has a woodsiness that can’t really be attributed to actual wood—it’s not a barrel influence, but a soil influence, that leaves you feeling like you’re eating wild berries off the vine, juice dribbling down your chin, in the middle of a dark redwood grove. The combination of velvety depth and palate-enlivening freshness is irresistible, and the wine is ready to drink now: decant it about 30 minutes before serving at 60 degrees in Burgundy stems, and should you decide to take some quantity, be assured that it will only improve and broaden further over the next several years. It’s not one to lay down for a decade, but you won’t be able to wait that long anyway once you’ve tried it. And while tomato season isn’t even close, I can’t help recommending the Sicilian answer to
ratatouille with this wine:
caponata. Trust me when I say you’ll make it more than once this summer. Cheers!
— David Lynch
