First published in the September edition of India Today Travel Plus
SPIRITED TRAVELLER / By
Sourish Bhattacharyya
IN ETNA’S SINISTER SHADOW
MAKING wine on Europe’s tallest active volcano? It seems like
a crazy idea, for the volcano erupts with deathless regularity, and at least
once a decade, its lava flows reach dangerously close to the highest town,
turning the land along the way into mounds of solidified magma, uncultivable
for hundreds of years.
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| This is a view of Mount Etna from the beach resort town of Taormina painted by Thomas Cole in 1842. The topography and life around the perennially active volcano has changed dramatically since the time this scene was painted. |
That hasn’t stopped the Nicolosi family from being in the wine
business since 1726. Their windswept vineyard is perched at a height of 700m, overlooking
the coastline of the hedonistic holiday destination Taormina. The soil, having
collected lava chips carried by the air whenever an eruption takes place,
crunches under your feet as you go up and down the 45-degree slope. It’s an eerie
feeling, but the Nicolosi family isn’t alone on the slopes of Etna.
The slopes of Etna today support about 100 producers, all
between 400m and 800m, the point beyond which human habitation isn’t allowed.
Some of them are new arrivals, who come with heavy-duty credentials, such as
Alessio Planeta, one of Sicily’s most important wine producers, and Giuseppe
Tasca of the famous Regaleali estate. They’ve been attracted by two features of
Etna’s gloomy landscape — the area is teeming with abandoned vineyards, which
are up for grabs at discounted prices, and many of these sites have old vines,
the stuff every winemaker dreams of.
The Planeta estate in the district of Sciara Nuova had been
abandoned for 20 years, giving the soil the rest it needed to rejuvenate and
play ball with one of Italy’s most prestigious labels. Ironically, its wines
cannot carry Etna’s name on their labels because the DOC rules don’t permit
vineyards above 800m, but the Planeta estate is at 870m. The wine house has
gotten around the problem by coming up with a most attractive label for its
white wine produced with Carricante grapes and 5 per cent Riesling. The wine is
called Eruzione 1614, commemorating a slow eruption that started that year and
continued for a decade!
Back at Barone di Villagrande, Marco Nicolosi, the youngest
member of the family, whose Ph.D. thesis at Milan was on the techniques of
producing red Nerello Mascalese wines, explains how the constant breeze
counteracts the effects of heavy rain (it rains ten times more than the rest of
Sicily on the slopes of Etna) by drying the grapes. The harvest is completed in
mid-October and the rains start towards the month’s end. It’s just the kind of
place where you’d want to go on a holiday, especially in May and June, and the
Nicolosi family has just the place where you’d want to check in. A pretty
little hotel with four rooms and all the mod-cons you could possibly want,
including free WiFi. If I had the luxury, when at Villagrande, I would give my
laptop a break and go up the Etna on a mountain bike, and if luck’s on my side,
watch it spew out lava as I settle down with a glass of Carricante. www.villagrande.it
A NAME WITH A
REPUTATION
THE NAME Cerasuolo di Vittoria has the gravitas that you’d
expect of a red wine region that was the first in Sicily to be granted the
coveted DOCG status in 2005 — and it’s still the only one to carry that mark of
distinction in Italy’s sprawling southern island. Yet, very few people know
about it because, as Decanter
magazine analyses it so aptly, the wines from this south-eastern corner of
Sicily have neither “the jammy fruit and chewy textures of the
international-style reds invented in the 1990s,” nor the “headline-grabbing
attention of Etna wines, with their celebrity owners and old bush vines.”
The wines marry the “tannins and earthiness” of Nero d’Avola,
Sicily’s much-acclaimed red wine grapes, with the “floral aromas and juiciness”
of the sensitive Frappato, which only grows in Vittorio. In the words of Decanter, they have “a unity and
authenticity that make them a true reflection of their terroir — one which,
perhaps surprisingly given the baking hot climate, expresses aroma and an
exhilarating dry intensity rather than weight and power.”
Gulfi is one of the big players of the area and its vineyards
at Chiaramonte Gulfi, a commune in the province of Ragusa, offers a great
getaway in Locanda Gulfi, which has a restaurant that showcases the best of
Sicilian cuisine, and the more informal Hosterja Gulfi, where guests eat on
lava tables and draw wines freely from the barrels next to them. You could go
for a wine tasting weekend or bone up on Sicilian cuisine at the cooking
classes of the resident chef, Carmelo Floridia, or make Gulfi your base to
travel to the historical cities of Siracusa, Noto, Modica, Ragusa Ibla and
Catania, which are famous for their magnificent showpieces of Sicilian Baroque architecture.
Go to www.gulfi.it, download the brochure and
book your holiday now.
BACK FROM THE BRINK
TOWARDS Sicily’s south-east is the historic town of Siracusa,
which was colonised by the Greeks in the eight century B.C. The days of the
colonisers, and their Roman successors, who brought corn to Sicily, come alive in
the ancient ruins scattered across the city’s historical centre, but their fragrant
and fruity gift to thirsty humanity, Moscato di Siracusa, which could
rightfully claim to be Italy’s oldest wine grape, would have been lost forever
had Antonio ‘Nino’ Pupillo not revived it 25 years ago at the property his
grandfather bought in 1908.
The centerpiece of the property is the castle-like country
house that the German emperor, Frederick II, built in 1240. Guarded by a
60-year-old cactus tree that is as tall as the castle, it’s the kind of
location where you’d want to host your 50th birthday bash. The place is studded
with historical relics, including an eight-century Arab stone engraving of
Bacchus wearing a lion mask surrounded by vines and bunches of grapes, and you
can savour a Sicilian repast at the 18th-century Palmento, a spacious hall that
can easily accommodate a wedding reception. My meal, laid out by the Pupillo
family, consisted of skinned roasted bell peppers, the Sicilian stuffed rice
balls, arancini, cabbage rolls with rice, bread with caponata (the sweet and
sour fried eggplant preparation), pita bread with wild spinach, and sausages
cooked with Moscato wines and raisins — rustic yet wholesome, fresh and
flavourful, just what you’d want with a glass of Podero 27, the refreshingly
crispy sparkler, and the 100 per cent Moscato, Cyane, an intensely aromatic,
slightly sweet white wine that lingers on your palate much after you’ve drunk
it. www.solacium.it
THIS MONTH’S TIP-OFF
A GUIDED wine tour of Mount Etna, especially if you happen to
be around when the smoking giant is erupting, is an experience not to be
missed. A drive up the slopes of Etna takes you to vineyards where wine
tastings are accompanied by delish cherry tomatoes, cheeses, roasted peppers in
olive oil and salami from local wild pigs; to the national park where you can
follow breathtaking walking trails amid masses of ghostly magma formations; and
to baroque towns where you’re greeted by the whiff of the distinctive local
cuisine simmering in the kitchens of family-run restaurants. If you have the
time, you can take a slight detour to the town of Bronte, which is famous for
its pistachios that show up in sweets, baked goodies and ice-cream. Check out
the tour on offer at www.lebaccanti.com.
A family for four can buy a tour for Eur 165 per person (including taxes and
fees).
500,000
THESE many years of constant volcanic eruptions on Mount Etna
have enriched its soil with the kind of minerals that make a difference to the quality
of the wines produced on its slopes.
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