Pietradolce Etna Rosso, Sicily, Italy 2013 (£17.99, Armit Wines; Corks of Cotham) Fine wine in modern Italy is a relatively new phenomenon. Of course plenty of wine has always been made in the peninsula. But, aside from a handful of exceptional producers, France was always miles ahead when it came to the truly thrilling stuff. In a recent article for the Wine Society’s magazine, the writer Nicolas Belfrage – an expert on the wines of Italy – dates the beginning of the country’s vinous renaissance to the 1970s. But Sicily’s current status as one of Europe’s most exciting wine regions is still more recent, a critical mass of quality-focused producers arriving only in the 1990s and 2000s. Pietradolce is most certainly among them, and this red from 2013 is a captivating mix of red-fruited delicacy and earthy textures.
Valdibella Ariddu Grillo, Camporeale, Sicily 2012 (£11.95, Berry Brothers & Rudd) Pietradolce’s is but one example of the wine style that has attracted most attention on Sicily: the local grape variety nerello mascalese from vineyards on Mount Etna. No surprises why – there’s something romantically perverse about a wine produced on the slopes of what is still an active volcano, especially when the pale but powerful results recall the haunting complexity of Burgundian pinot noir and Piemontese nebbiolo. But while the complex Etna wines (both red and white) by Graci were a highlight of a recent tasting of Sicilians at smart retailer Berry Bros & Rudd, buyer David Berry Green’s selection proved that there is so much more to the island – this intense, exotically fruited, herb-streaked white from the western Camporeale region being particularly fine value.
Curatolo Marsala Superiore Dolce NV (£11.99, Waitrose) Valdibella’s white uses grillo, a Sicilian grape variety that is also the ingredient for another very fine dry white at the Berry Bros & Rudd tasting (and one of the best in all Italy): the crackling, savoury, lemon-scented Grappoli del Grillo 2011 (£23.25) by Marco de Bartoli. Historically grillo was the grape of Marsala, the island’s great neglected fortified wine, a style at which de Bartoli is also a modern master – as his dense, sweet but agile essence of citrus peel, figs and almonds, 1987 Marsala Superiore Riserva, shows. At £62 it certainly doesn’t come cheap, but Curatolo’s is a very credible alternative which, with its deep, dark dried fruit and nut sweetness tastes like – and is worth setting aside for – Christmas, if you can wait that long.
