Passengers gasp as Mount Etna comes into view. The world’s most energetic stratovolcano is puffing merrily as a result of the airplane circles near it sooner than landing in Catania on Sicily’s east coast. It dominates the panorama, rising to about 3,350m, with a circumference on the bottom of about 150km, earlier lava flows scarring the mountainside in various places.
You sense the volcano in all places you go – from the dialled-up flavours of the produce to the black mud in your footwear (just a bit tip: don’t placed on white trainers) after a stroll on its slopes. And in addition you type it throughout the wines, which present a formidable sense of place, fascinating all who type them.
Making wine proper right here really isn’t for the faint-hearted. The terroir modifications persistently, with every belch of black ash, which happens ceaselessly. Consequently, there are literally 142 contradas (equivalent to the lieu-dit or cru in France), wrapped throughout the mountain in a horseshoe type, each outlined by elevation and native climate, and by the particular person lava flows which have swept all through the soils.
Winemakers listed under are quick to concentrate on this distinctive terroir. They stage out the cool nights and warmth days, the acute daylight and the earlier, higher-elevation vineyards, which are largely bush ‘alberello’ expert, with some even ungrafted and pre-phylloxera vines. Combine that with the largely native varieties grown proper right here – with sturdy little Nerello Mascalese important the lighter-style reds and Carricante making up the vast majority of the acute, signature whites – and it’s easy to know why Etna has develop into catnip for wine lovers.
Now throw in an influx of fine new lodging, some offered by the wine producers themselves, and a delicacies that thrills as a result of Sicily’s many historic invaders, plus newly tarmacked roads (as a result of earlier hurt from eruptions) merely an hour’s drive from Catania, and Etna is an thrilling new trip spot for the wine vacationer.
Credit score rating: JP Map Graphics Ltd
Life amid the lava
Part of Etna’s attraction is its otherworldliness, with lunar landscapes and wildly unpredictable local weather. Volcano-battered, black stone-built cities and villages cling to Etna’s slopes and, between the strips of hardened lava, the panorama bursts with life. In spring – the best time to go to – appreciable yellow broom pops in direction of the black earth, as vines awaken on steep terraces carved out extreme on the mountainside, set amongst oak and chestnut forests, hazelnut and apple bushes, wild flowers and fragrant herbs. There’s a palpable vitality that radiates from the mountain itself and from the people who reside and work proper right here.
Anna Martens harvesting Vigna Nave at 1,100m on the northeast face of Mount Etna. Credit score rating Hesh Hipp
‘We’ll actually really feel that vitality throughout the wines,’ declares Eric Narioo all through a tour spherical his Solicchiata cellar, the place he makes pure wines beneath the Vino di Anna label collectively together with his partner Anna Martens. Pure wine followers could recognise his title – he’s the French-born proprietor of Guildford-based wine service supplier Les Caves de Pyrene, which put pure wine on the map throughout the UK. He was moreover among the many many first to convey consideration to Etna better than a decade previously, when the pair first rocked up proper right here. ‘The healthful rising circumstances and extreme altitudes have made farming organically a lot easier than in extra humid parts of the world,’ Narioo explains, displaying off the qvevri they use for ageing and macerating, and the earlier palmento – the usual stone developing via which wine was made in Sicily, with a eternal system of stone-cut containers and channels for foot-treading of the grapes and gravity-feeding of the juice into the fermentation and ageing vessels. Instantly, utilizing palmenti has been formally abandoned – declared too unhygienic by Brussels bureaucrats.
My good day on and spherical Mt Etna
Morning
Start the day with a stroll by the chestnut forest on the sting of Linguaglossa, winding your technique up the hill alongside a gravel avenue for breathtaking views over Mount Etna and the north wind-buffering Nebrodi mountains to raised understand the world’s distinctive native climate. Stop by 1939-established Barone Pasticceri for an espresso and its well-known almond biscuits, ordering additional to take home. Return to Palazzo Previtera for a cookery class of as a lot as three hours with family put together dinner Angela, to find methods to make dishes equal to native pasta maccheroni dressed with a sauce product of garden-plucked veg.
Cookery course at Palazzo Previtera. Credit score rating: Fabio Florio
Lunch & afternoon
Scoff what you’ve cooked on the palazzo’s jasmine-scented terrace, which overlooks the volcano in all its puffing glory, grabbing a glass to match from a bottle plucked from the cupboards of well-stocked Linguaglossa wine retailer Il Vino della Rosa, which focuses on smaller Etna producers. Each put together a taxi or drive the half hour to lauded Etna producer I Vigneri alongside the upper scenic path to Milo on the volcano’s japanese slopes, winding by verdant chestnut and oak forests on one side, the Med shimmering on the other. That’s the place father and son group Salvo and Simone Foti nurture indigenous grapes grown as a lot as 1,300m and produce fantastically crafted wines, some made using a traditional palmento, which operates as a result of the tasting house when not in use.
Night time
Start off at Linguaglossa native Bar Le Palme (see Fb) with ragu-filled arancini (the best spherical, many say), then stroll two minutes to legendary butcher-cum-bistro Dai Pennisi, which makes a operate of curing meats and making meatballs using cuts from (Sluggish Meals star) Nebrodi black pigs. Select first from the counter after which cruise cupboards lined with a formidable alternative of Etna wines.
Dai Pennisi
Essential names
Winemaking isn’t new to Etna, in reality. The reality is, it was the birthplace of wine in Sicily and as quickly because the island’s largest grape-growing space, the wine largely transported in bulk up north to boost manufacturing in pre-regulation days. Trendy Etna, as everyone knows it proper now, was pioneered by Dr Giuseppe Benanti, a pharmacist who based mostly Tenuta di Castiglione in 1988 with a mixture of owned and rented vineyards. A decade later, the property took on the family title and have grow to be the first Etna winery with a presence on all of the volcano’s slopes. Although Benanti labored with worldwide varieties, his passion was for native grapes, a passion that has since unfold all through the world. Completely different Etna pioneers embrace Alberto Graci, Andrea Franchetti and Belgian wine-broker-turned-winemaker Frank Cornelissen, throughout the neighbouring village of Passopisciaro, the place we head subsequent.
Cornelissen wins the prize for costliest Etna wine, Magma, which can retail for as a lot as £330 per bottle. His winery is surprisingly modest – a bit just like the particular person himself – using fibreglass tanks, which work properly for his minimal-intervention technique. Visitors get to try as a lot as 5 wines and are escorted on a tour of thought-about considered one of Cornelissen’s old-vine vineyards (by appointment solely).
Meals as a operate
In response to the rising curiosity in Etna’s wines, many wineries have upped their tourism recreation throughout the remaining decade. The number of producers throughout the Etna DOC has better than doubled as a result of it was based mostly in 1968 (as Sicily’s first), numbering 442 on the ultimate rely. At Terrazze dell’Etna, merely above the atmospheric medieval metropolis of Randazzo, a 25-minute drive from sleepy Linguaglossa, friends can e-book for a ‘sunset aperitif’, held every Saturday all via the peak season from June; and remaining 12 months it added 5 bedrooms for vineyard stays, with an entire two-hour tasting carried out by expert sommelier Daniela D’Amore.
Shut by, at swanky Napa-style Palmento Costanzo, meals is a priority, pushed by wine-loving matriarch Valeria Agosta. Proper right here, the native butcher’s most attention-grabbing is cooked up throughout the good winery restaurant to pair with its elegant wines (by prior affiliation solely: bundle particulars and contacts via site), with a classy new residence set among the many many vines on the market to retreat to after.
Palmento Costanzo. Credit score rating: Winery Tasting Sicily
Merely 10 minutes away, Donnafugata moreover makes meals a operate for friends. The Marsala-based agency is typical of Sicilian wine’s massive players which have realised their ambition to include Etna of their portfolio. This 12 months, it added a sublime new tasting room overlooking Etna’s rugged slopes and smoking crater previous, the place friends can try small plates of native dishes matched with their wines in a spirited tutored tasting.
Whereas there are 89 contradas concentrating on the northern slopes that embrace plenty of the prime producers and lots of the best reds, it could possibly be a mistake to not embrace a go to to the additional sea-influenced producers on {the japanese} and southern slopes, which are further merely accessible from Catania in case your time is temporary. Barone di Villagrande and Murgo are properly versed in web internet hosting friends, each offering various bedrooms via which to stay, with a full program of excursions and consuming locations with practised menus paired with their wines. And positive, the volcano stays to be inside majestic view – on a regular basis the star of the current proper right here, accurately.
Simple strategies to get there from the UK
Easyjet flies to Catania from London Luton and Gatwick as a lot as 16 cases per week, with fares from £24.99 a way.
Your Etna deal with e-book
Lodging
Belmond Grand Lodge Timeo
A go to to the Etna space isn’t full and never utilizing a maintain in Taormina and that’s the grande dame – the first resort to open on this dazzling hilltop metropolis initially swooned over by painters and poets, and now by meals and wine lovers, merely over half an hour from Etna’s wine nation. Luxurious with bells on, and boasting among the many most interesting views of Mount Etna, it moreover affords the fruits of a wine collaboration with prestigious producer Pietradolce.
Belmond Grand Lodge Timeo. Credit score rating: Mattia Aquila
Monaci delle Terre Nere
A wine property to beat all of them, with its elegant pool villas and rooms set among the many many vines rising on steep terraces on Etna’s southeastern slopes near Sarro village. The brainchild of proprietor Guido Coffa, it delivers an opulent agriturismo concept, with its large kitchen yard and domestically sourced menus from chef-to-watch Salvo Sardo, and arguably the best Etna wine itemizing in its Nerello restaurant.
Palazzo Previtera
It has taken Alfio Puglisi and his dad and mother (architect mum, civil engineer dad) 10 years to renovate this 1649-built, walled garden-set family palazzo throughout the sprawling metropolis of Linguaglossa on Mount Etna’s northeastern slopes. It’s daring and breathtaking, cleverly combining fashionable art work with intriguing heirloom objects.
Consuming locations
Brizza
Be thought-about considered one of 16 mates consuming correct on the water’s fringe of this iconic Taormina seafront resort, Belmond Villa Sant’ Andrea, and profit from the world’s most interesting fish on a tasting menu from chef Agostino D’Angelo, paired with wines from an entire Etna wine itemizing that now incorporates wines aged beneath the ocean in a model new enterprise with veteran Etna producer Benanti.
Etna Quota Mille
Drive by the earlier lava flows until you attain this Sicilian hotspot on the higher reaches of the volcano, above Randazzo. On the weekends, the cavernous consuming home fills with households, who come for the excellent hand-crafted pastas (try the ‘olive-leaf’ shaped pasta with native king trumpet mushrooms) and wood-grilled meats, with most Etna wineries represented.
Trattoria Linguagrossa
+39 320 864 9723
Ask anyone for the best restaurant on Etna and many will direct you to this modest-looking spot in downtown Linguaglossa, which hides a positive experience throughout the kitchen and serves up polished standard dishes equal to baccalà alla ghiotta (salt cod with capers, pine nuts and olives), with a optimistic cellar to pick from.
Buying
I Perivancu
This treasure trove of a meals retailer throughout the bustling metropolis of Viagrande on the bottom of Etna’s japanese slope has been shopping for and promoting since 1926, sourcing regional specialities that you just simply’re unlikely to go looking out elsewhere, from cured meats to condiments.
Il Buongustaio
Head to this wine shop-cum-bar and purveyor of Sicilian foodstuffs on a cobbled street in Randazzo, and let supervisor Giovanni info you via the world’s quirkier winemakers as you sip at a pavement desk.
Randazzo market
Rub shoulders with locals at Randazzo’s sprawling weekly Sunday morning market, which takes place on the sting of metropolis, the crater looming above. Buy native cheeses, meats and Etna honey to take home, after which try Sicily’s most interesting granita at Pasticceria Santo Musumeci.
A alternative of native cheeses at Randazzo market.
Credit score rating: Ruslan Okay Image / Shutterstock