Trop to Sicily (October 2013)…Visit to I Vigneri of Etna

250-year-old Nerello Mascalese vine

October 24 (Thurs)

In the afternoon, we visited I Vigneri, which is a “Winegrowers Guild” of Etna and was established by Salvo Foti. As a co-op winery, it’s currently run by 6 local growers.


We drove up to their highest altitude vineyards first. The location is about 4,000 feet (1,300 m) above sea level. As we walked through woods, we arrived at their vineyards.


This is a very old vineyard and planted with various different grape varieties almost randomely. There are mostly Carricante and Grenache, and just 2 vines of Nerello Mascalese. This is the highest altitude vineyard site in Etna, so it has longer growing season of grapes than other vineyards. Grapes on the vines are already ripening nicely and tasted really sweet as I picked some of them.


Vines are planted in the very natural environment, so between the vines were were like bushes!


We drove down to their cantina, and walked around the vineyard right by it also. The vines there were extremely old and high density. Some vines are 250 years old! I’ve never seen such thick vines before.


Also, they do very natural style farming in high density, just like the higher altitude vineyard we just went. So, there were a lot of weeds growing all over, too.


We tasted the following wines.
2012 Nerello Mascalese…grapes were crushed by foot like the ancient way.
2006 Nerello Mascalese “Vinupetra”
2008 Nerello Mascalese “Aetneus”…including 250-year-old vines. 2011 Carricante

Trip to Sicily (October 2013)…Visit to Frank Cornelissen and Etna style lunch

Pressing grapes manually at Frank Cornelissen

October 24 (Thurs)

We left the hotel in the morning and our first destination was Frank Cornelissen in Etna. Frank, who is originally from Belgium, is one of the most naturalist wine producers in Etna.


We first met his wife, Aki (yes, she’s Japanese!), and she took us to their most prestigious Magma vineyard. The vineyard was on a steep hill side. It’s high density, and she said tending this vineyard is really difficult and labor intensive.


We drove to their cantina (winery), where the workers were busy pressing and fermenting just harvested grapes.


They take very manual labor intensive methods here. I’ve never seen manually pressing the grapes like that before. It was so cool.

For their top level Magma wine, they use amphora for fermentation. We also met Frank.


We had the tasting of some of his wines.
2012 Munjebel ianco (mostly Grecanico?)
2012 Munjebel (MC...Nerello Mascalese 100%, from lower altitude)
2012 Munjebel (VA - Vigna Alta…same grape, from higher altitude)


After the visit, we had lunch at a popular local restaurant called, San Giorgio e Il Drago. Frank told us that the food at this restaurant is very good local style, while they almost never change the menu!


Antipasti was followed by zucchini orchiette pasta and ragu pasta. Really nice.


Secondi was local rabbit and lamb. They do meat right! Wines were nice, too.
2009 Murgo, Spumante Brut (Nerello Mascalese 100%)
2009 Alice Bonaccorsi, “Noir” Etna Bianco (Carricante and Catarratto)
2003 Calabretta, Etna Rosso I enjoyed the rustic local-style lunch very much.