The Wine
This wine is a blend of Sicily's indigenous white grapes - Carricante and Catarratto - grown in one of Etna's typically volcanic vineyards in an area known as the Calderara District. I generally enjoy writing my own notes, but got such a kick out of the translation of this tasting note from an Italian publication that I couldn't resist sharing it here:
From young vineyards personally cared for by Calogero Statella but not owned, it [the wine] smells of broom and tufaceous notes. In the mouth, full and structured, it is vertical, very salty, and impresses with its length. An absolutely identifying sip, an authentic son of the Contrada of reference.
The Winery
Calogero (Cal) Statella and his wife, Rita, were both born and raised in the shadow of Mt. Etna, growing up in the land of lava ash and black soils. Cal first stated his desire to be a winemaker when he was ten years old, and "today I feel like a village carpenter who has grown up to become a master craftsman!"
He has crafted the wines for the famed Tenuta delle Terre Nere since 2003, helping to establish their place as one of Etna's premier producers. But his dream has always been to purchase a family vineyard and produce wine under their own label. That dream came true in 2015, and the whole affair involves every member of the family as they manage every stage of bringing their wines to life.
The Statella wines are crafted from vineyards following the more expensive organic certification procedures, not out of current fashion but for reasons of ethics and sustainability. He is strongly influenced by the delicate but complex and ethereal wines of Burgundy, a region they visit annually, and that aesthetic may have been behind his purchase of vineyard land on the North side of Mt Etna, where the volcanic soils are the oldest - estimated at 60,000 years old - whereas the soils in rest of the Etna DOC (shaped like a backwards "C" around Mt Etna, moving North to East and the South) is a relative neophyte.
