2021 Vini Franchetti Passopisciaro Etna Rosso "Passorosso," Sicily, Italy

ABOUT THIS WINE

Formerly Passopisciaro, Passorosso is made from the grapes of nerello mascalese, blending across different altitudes and soil types. This wine is a holistic expression of the breadth of flavors that Etna can produce with a character that distills this unique growing environment in a glass, reflecting the variations of each vintage. The wines age in large, neutral oak barrels and are unfiltered, presenting an interpretation of nerello mascalese that is bright, pure, red-fruited, mineral, and herbaceous, and with age, it begins to lose its color and gain exotic aromas of camphor, sandalwood, and spice. The first vintage was in 2001. Starting with the 2014 vintage, Passorosso has been designated Etna Rosso DOC.

Vines are 80 to 110 years old and the grapes are vinified for 15 days in steel vats before they are aged for 18 months between cement vats and large oak barrels. Bottling was done with the waning moon June of 2021.

ABOUT THIS PRODUCER

Franchetti is the top wine produced at Passopisciaro, a Super-Etnean wine of petit verdot and cesanese d’Affile from volcanic rock and ash. The grapes were planted in the early 2000s after Andrea Franchetti purchased the estate in the contrada Guardiola – a dense planting with vines 90cm x 90cm apart, at 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) above sea level.

When he came to Etna, Franchetti imagined a wine that would be denser and more concentrated than the lighter-bodied and colored wines of the local variety. Thus, while the nerello wines are “wines of place” expressing their unique terroir, Franchetti is a true winemaker’s wine, expressing a particular vision of the maker.