A JOURNEY THROUGH THE CONTRADE OF ETNA

August 2013, after a long train journey, I finally arrive on the slopes of Etna. The volcano, which seems not to have lost its habit, welcomes me with smoke. The high, warm sun illuminates the Etnean vines with a vivid light. From here begins my brief account of the days I spent as a guest of the highest volcano in Europe. For getting around I use an old, yet indestructible white Panda from the early '90s, no radio, no air conditioning. A car that in big cities can only be found in exhibitions and enthusiast car shows, here is one of the most widespread and sought-after vehicles; it seems that the market price of an old-style Panda hovers around fifteen hundred euros!...in short, a real bargain for those who, failing to understand the greatness of an unshakeable mechanical beast, leave the most fashionable model on the Etnean roads to rust in dark garages.

Old palmenti (places where wine was made until a few decades ago) have been transformed into welcoming accommodation facilities, all built with black lava stones. Dwellings that, despite enduring a scorching sun for nearly fourteen hours, manage in the evening to welcome guests with a temperature that is as naturally as it is pleasantly cool. A winding road passes through vineyards, recent lava flows and micro clusters of houses dominated by a small fountain and a little bar. This is Etna with its inhabitants and its buildings, but this was not enough to make me travel for more than ten hours by train. My curiosity is for its land, for its vines, for its cantine, or more simply for the men who are making famous a place that seems to be outside of time and space. The Etnean vines grow on sandy soils of volcanic origin rich in minerals. To the eye, the soil shifts toward shades of brown tending to garnet. To the touch, the sensation of rubbing a little earth between your fingers is that of touching face powder, for its ability to transfer its warmth and color onto your hands. A land that releases all its fertility at first encounter. From an enological point of view, we can divide Etnean viticulture into two macro zones. The first coincides with the south-east-east side, corresponding to the municipalities of Milo and Zafferana. The second with the land on the north-east slope, where the small municipalities of Castiglione di Sicilia and Randazzo are located. The estates found on the south-east-east arise on soils with lava flows almost a millennium old. Shallow, well-ventilated soils that look directly out to sea with less sun exposure than the north-east slope. The temperature variations between day and night hover around 10-15°, about ten degrees less than the rival face. For these characteristics, this slope is best suited to the production of white wines, which, although with great structure, lack the lively freshness to which our alpine wines have accustomed us. On the more "northern" vines, deeper soils, century-old vines and the protection of the Nebrodi mountains guarantee producers in this area wines that manage to express all their island personality without losing anything in refinement, depth and persistence. Here production hovers around forty thousand bottles, against an average of about twenty hectares per producer, compared to the one hundred and fifty thousand bottles on the opposite side of the volcano. Alberello-trained vines are present in small plots, while the rest of the vineyard is planted with corsone speronato, guyot and tamed alberello. One could speak of terroir, of cru, but French sits uneasily with this land as welcoming as it is sincere in describing its origins. There is an entirely Sicilian way to express the differences between soils, altitudes and the age of lava flows: it is when one speaks of contrade. A term promoted by the same wine estates that meet once a year at the Passopisciaro estate to hold a comparison event between the different expressions of Nerello, aptly named: Le contrade dell'Etna. To the eye, the soil shifts toward shades of brown tending to garnet. To the touch, the sensation of rubbing a little earth between your fingers is that of touching face powder, for its ability to transfer its warmth and color onto your hands. A land that releases all its fertility at first encounter. Until a few years ago a buyer would have struggled to distinguish the wines between the different slopes of the volcano without a particular knowledge of the territory and the estates, but in the coming years alongside the denomination designation the name of the contrada from which the grapes come will appear. A turning point aimed at better communicating the territory, a wager for the best-known estates who will give up their brand to enhance the place where the vine challenges the lava and the sun, where men produce the great wines of the volcano.