Tag Archives: nerello mascalese

What Wine Means: Revisiting Passopisciaro 2007

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Sometimes a bottle of wine is like a much-needed hug.

In this case, that was due to both the maker and the giver. 2007 was the last vintage before Andrea Franchetti began making his single vineyard Contrada wines, so this was still his only Nerello Mascalese, and so much of that fruit still made it into this bottling. I’ve always thought of Passorosso (as this wine is now known) as his calling card, a holistic approach to representing a vision of Mt. Etna’s potential, encapsulating its myriad aspects, lava flows, and elevations in a glass. Revisiting this wine took me immediately back to a place for which I’ve been so nostalgic; tasting it, I was reminded of how the best wines of that place stand with the great wines of the world.

passorosso-2007

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Contrada Guardiola Comparative Tasting

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IMG_1993After a fantastic tour around Etna today with my friends at Tenuta delle Terre Nere, we wrapped with a tasting of wines from the Guardiola vines from both Terre Nere and Passopisciaro: Same alcohol, same vintage, different expressions of the same Contrada. Sitting across the road from one another, the terroir was evident – both share an amarena cherry nose, balsamic notes; bright acidity from this high altitude; and structure from this lava spill. Picked October 20th, the Terre Nere has more structured and drying tannins, leathery and peppery notes on the palate, while the Passopisciaro, picked November 2nd, showed sweeter fruit and more supple tannins, alongside more pronounced acidity. A tasting from two stars of Etna I’ve wanted to explore for awhile, and I thank my friends for obliging.

A “Fussy” Harvest on Mt. Etna

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IMG_5889I spent my first few days in Italy down on Mt. Etna, observing the harvest at Passopisciaro. Andrea Franchetti, its owner, showed me how the color of the leaves and slope of the hills could allow him to predict what would be ready first – the vines with yellowed leaves were already bare, the sugars directed to the grapes on the areas where the soil wasn’t as rich (the deeper the green, the later the ripening goes his approach); and where there were depressions in the vineyard, however slight, those grapes too were still left to ripen, while the edges of the rows on higher ground were already plucked. We tasted from plant after plant, and for the first time I could really understand how much a single vine could vary from its neighbor. Some were just on the cusp of ripeness, with sweet juices bursting in my mouth and the seeds easily falling apart, where as others still maintained a tart, green edge.

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