Etna Rosso Cavanera Firriato, Sicily and Excellence

Firriato is a winery of excellence, an emblem of a modern Sicily showing its best face. Since the early 1980s, the Di Gaetano family has improved the quality of their wines and their presence on the national and international market, representing, through their range, many of the island's terroir, often very different from one another.
In constant growth for over three decades, Firriato today brings together 6 estates spread across Sicily for a total of 320 hectares of vineyard. The winery presents no fewer than 32 different labels for a total of four and a half million bottles produced. The multiple morphologies of the territories where the estate vineyards are located have made it possible to enhance the various productive vocations, valorising not only native varieties but also international ones.
From three of the four properties located in the Trapani area come the wines that have made the winery's history. From Borgo Guarini comes the Harmonium, from Tenuta Pianoro Cuddia the Ribeca, from Baglio Sorìa the Camelot. The fourth Trapani estate is Dagala Borromeo, joined by Tenuta Calamoni, a property located on the island of Favignana, and Tenuta Cavanera at Castiglione di Sicilia on the slopes of Etna.
We visited the winery located in Paceco, a stone's throw from Trapani. We saw the premises housing the steel tanks, the barrel cellar, the bottling plant. We then tasted a dozen labels pre-agreed with Federico Mammoli from among the company's vast offering. I would like to thank Federico for the kindness and availability he showed in leading the winery visit.

I won't dwell on the very well-known Harmonium or Camelot, excellent wines, widely recognised and capable of garnering a wealth of awards over the years. I prefer instead to tell the story of a wine I had never had the chance to taste before, a wine that struck me deeply for the intensity of its gustatory and olfactory narrative. We are talking about the Etna Rosso Cavanera Rovo delle Coturnie 2010.
The wine is born from Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio grapes grown as espalier at Tenuta Cavanera in Castiglione di Sicilia. We are at 600 m above sea level on the eastern slope of Etna. The vineyard is planted on fairly loose volcanic soil, with 3,500 vines per hectare. Yields are very low: not exceeding 55–58 quintals per hectare.
The overall picture highlights the excellent quality of the grapes produced, raw material that follows an equally careful journey in the winery. After destemming, alcoholic fermentation lasts 18 days and is carried out inside truncated-conical wooden vats at a controlled temperature of around 25°C. After racking, the wine ages for nine months in French oak barriques, Slavonian oak casks, and chestnut barrels. After a further period of bottle ageing of six months, the wine is released to market.
Let us now describe this 2010. The wine is a transparent and luminous ruby red in colour with a garnet rim; swirling the glass forms thick tears that slowly slide down the sides – a clear sign of great structure and 14 degrees of alcohol.
On the nose the wine is intense and complex, with pleasant notes of rose and ripe red fruit, giving way to more tertiary aromas of spices, tobacco and liquorice, and the characteristic mineral and ferrous notes of volcanic origin. On the palate the wine is dry, warm, fairly soft yet well balanced in its fresh-savoury component, with a powerful but already well-integrated tannin. The wine is intense on the palate too, with a persistence measured in minutes, with continuous balsamic retro-olfactory returns.
A wine that for complexity and structure pairs beautifully with furred game preparations or particularly aged cheeses.
A wine that demonstrates surprising stylistic completeness, expressing all its typicity, the imprint and energy of Etna with a crescendo narrative development. An excellent nectar, capable of stirring emotion during tasting as much as in the memory of the experience.