Fact: Until recently, Sicily produced more wine than the whole of Australia and New Zealand combined – this was mostly shipped as bulk and sold to the domestic market
Fact: In order to gain recognition for quality over quantity, the first fine winemakers on Sicily resorted to producing and promoting wines from international grape varieties
Fact: Due to the extra-ordinary vision of a handful of natives and ‘visitors’, regionality and indigenous grape varieties from Sicily are now enjoying worldwide recognition.

I am not afraid to admit it, Passopisciaro, made from the elegant Nerello Mascalese grape variety on the menacingly dark slopes of Etna, is my favourite wine on our portfolio. Nerello’s nods to Pinot Noir in its grace and colour but this wine has the welcome addition of healthy Italian spirit. My tendenza towards Italian wines is well documented here at HQ and I have to admit it is driven as much by my experience of the people and the place as it is by their seemingly endless (and endlessly intriguing) wine offering.

So a chance to go down to visit Andrea Franchetti with a journalist from Decanter winked at me in an incorrigible way. The trip was to focus on Le Contrade dell’Etna, an event started by Andrea 6 years ago to bring together a select handful of the 120 wine producers on the volcano. This year, the tally had reached 48 producers, brought together to stand side by side, showing the 2009 vintage for the first time. This seemed like a veritable miracle in Italy where neither team work nor organisation are quite as high on the agenda as the next delicious bowl of pasta. We had to see it.

“I fell in love with Etna. It is fascinating” says Andrea who first started making wine there in 2000, hot off the rattling plane from his highly successful Tuscan estate, Tenuta di Trinoro. We are flying and swerving along the motorway in the driving rain, both Andrea’s hands held high off the wheel in his cool but re-assuring Italian excitement. “In the late 1900’s, France looked at Etna to supplement its wine supply since many of the vines survived phylloxera. Eruptions do still happen – the last major one went on for 5 days.” Not that this seems to phase Andrea, “they happen on the other side of the volcano, not our side.” I envy his conviction.

Despite the first fog in a year, temperatures of 4°c and rain that rivalled that of my drenched West Highland upbringing, we were given a tour of the vineyards before tucking into proper Sicilian nosh. Terraces made from lava bricks are crucial here – in some cases, they are hundreds of years old. Rusty barbed wire seems to help ward off suspect-sounding ’farmers’ who present some of the many challenges the growers are facing. The wineries are dotted about like mountain huts – most of them without their own water supply. (Andrea is currently boring for water, at vast expense.) And black, black soil.

Contrade are effectively parcels of land, divided neatly on separate lava flows. Andrea has started to vinify 4 of the nerello mascalese Contrade separately which we were given to taste that night – fascinating. The impossibly named Chiappemacine had a punch of spice and masculine muscle while the very high (over 1000m) Rampante parcel showed beautiful, linear acidity, defying its wild name. The Passopisciaro 2008 (a blend) was beautifully elegant and, as always, incredibly well balanced – particularly impressive since the alcohol vol. is scarily near 15.5%. “This is typical of Etna” says Andrea who is rightfully secure in the knowledge that these wines pull it off with ease.

The next day was all about meeting the fellow producers and tasting their (varying and not always delicious) wines. Cloudy wines with no additives or treatment were one example of a new wave of winemaking being practiced – interestingly ‘marsala-esque’ but not a likely candidate for Corney & Barrow’s next list. There were some good wines and some great wines, all encased with Italian smiles and a touch of (dare-I-mention) ego.

The chat about natives (i.e. been on Etna for generations) versus visitors (i.e. not been on Etna for generations!) – in the area was raised at the tasting. Natives far outweighed the visitors, but what was very clear was that the visitors have been instrumental in creating the light which they are all, together, now enjoying. All credit to these visitors; Andrea is an extra-ordinary talented human being and Etna’s recognition is as much down to him as it is to anyone.

Visit Corney & Barrow’s Shop to learn more about the estate and the wines