Sicily turns up the (wine) heat

Obviously, I have a collection of Australian wines in my “cellar”, since those are the types of wines I grew up with. In addition to these, there is only one other region whose wines I have specifically tried to sample extensively, and that is Sicily.

This interest started from several holiday trips that my wife and I made to the island. There are many things to see there, from spectacular (often volcanic) scenery, to megalithic graves, to Ancient Greek ruins (the best of which are in Sicily and Turkey, not in Greece), and on to Late Baroque architecture (extensive in the south-east). More importantly, there are many places to sample mamma's home cooking, as well as the local wines.

So, I made an explicit attempt to acquire what wines I could get, from a wide range of online stores in the European Union. During 2015 to 2017 I managed to get 170 wines, many of which I am still drinking today. For example, we had a Benanti Etna Bianco 2017 with our Blue Mussels, plus Salmon patties, the other day.

I have, however, visited only five wineries — Gambino, Murgo, Florio, Benanti, and Gulfi. Of these, Gulfi is in the Hyblaean Mountains (Monti Iblei), which is the original home of the Nero d'Avola grape. This is the most common Sicilian variety now being trialed in New World vineyards. (Avola is the coastal port from which the wines were exported, just down the road from where Archimedes of Syracuse lived. It is also next to the town of Floridia, which recently set the highest temperature ever recorded in Europe.)

Of the other wineries that I have visited, only Benanti is on the lower slopes of Mount Etna, which is the region attracting most of the recent media attention for its wines. There are plenty of web reports (eg. Sicilian success: Producers on Mount Etna climb to greater heights with vigor and determination); and there is now a book, as well — The New Wines of Mount Etna: An Insider's Guide to the History and Rebirth of a Wine Region (2020) by Benjamin North Spencer.

Given the recent interest, it is not surprising that large-size comparative tastings have been appearing. The most recent of these comes from Stuart Pigott, at the James Suckling web site (Etna erupts in the glass as Sicily’s colorful wine plume spreads). The report has 353 wines rated from the island, with 118 (one-third) of them being from the Etna DOC.

The graph below shows the data for these wines, with the quality scores horizontally, and vertically a count of the number of wines at each score. The scores in red refer to the Etna wines, with the remainder being in blue.

Clearly, the Sicilian wines have done rather well, with an average score of 91.2 points (and a median of 91) — only five of the wines scored less than 86. This is better than the recent scores for 256 wines from New York state, with an average score of 90.2 points and a median of 90 (New York state of wine). However, it is not as good as the organic wines that I reported on recently (Do biodynamic wines taste better than organic wines?), with an average score of 92.1 points and a median of 92, nor the biodynamic wines, with an average score of 93.5 points and a median of 93.

More importantly for our purposes here, the Etna wines do better than the wines from the rest of Sicily, with an average score of 92.0 points (and a median of 92). Indeed, for all of the scores above 92, Etna has more wines recorded, even though it comprised only 33% of the sample. Four of the top five wines come from the Benanti winery, which I mentioned twice above — the report notes that this is “no surprise, given that the Benanti family has been one of the driving forces for Etna wines for more than 30 years.”

If you are interested in trying some of these wines, there is a follow-up report on: Great value wines: 10 Etna Rossos for under $40.

To be labelled Etna Rosso, the wines must be made from the varieties Nerello mascalese and Nerello cappuccio, of which Nerello mascalese is the main grape responsible for the interest in Etna wines. It has been tried elsewhere in Sicily, but nowhere else than Etna does it produce wines of distinction. It will be interesting to see how it goes on the other continents where it is now being trialed, as a producer of Pinot noir style wines.

Carricante is the main variety for wines labelled Etna Bianco, but it can also include Catarratto, Grecanico and Minnella. It is a welcome antidote to the sea of Chardonnay and Sauvignon blanc wines, with which the world-wide industry is currently awash. Indeed, stylistically, it reminds me of the unoaked whites of the Rhone Valley or Rioja, both of which have recently been championed:

• Why you should consider opulent white wines from the Rhône Valley
• In praise of white Châteauneuf
• Racy and ageworthy, Rioja’s white wines deserve attention

Finally, my wife and I have actually contemplated retiring to Sicily. However, her comment at the time, as we drove around the southern slopes of Mount Etna, was: “I am not living on a volcano”. Given recent events in the Atlantic, I can see her point — Etna is, after all, Europe’s most active volcano. Maybe Portugal would be a better bet?