‘A Muntagna’, this is how the Sicilians call Etna, the largest active volcano in Europe, which in recent years has become the new mecca of wine producers and lovers. A lunar and magnetic landscape, made of black earth with a volcanic matrix, centuries-old vines cultivated with saplings, important temperature changes and heterogeneous exposures: all factors that give Etna wines unique traits, made of chiaroscuro, sapid veins and solid but elegant structures. Wines that, far from being a passing fad, are becoming a security fueled (and animated) by historical names and faces of new producers.
A uniqueness intuited and ridden by important Italian and foreign wineries and entrepreneurs, who have consecrated the Mountain as a true star of national viticulture. Last in chronological order is the famous Piedmontese wine entrepreneur Angelo Gaja, who recently bought 21 hectares together with the winemaker Alberto Graci, but he is not the only one: among the Etna vineyards resonate names of famous Sicilian companies such as Planeta, Firriato, Tasca d’Almerita and Donnafugata. Also various foreigners were conquered by this area, such as Marco de Grazia, Florentine merchant of Italian wines in the United States and founder of Tenuta delle Terre Nere or Andrea Franchetti, former owner of Tenuta di Trinoro in Tuscany, creator of the Etna company Passopisciaro.
Among the pioneers of the ‘Etna miracle’ we find Giuseppe Benanti, a Sicilian pharmacist, who in 1988 felt the atavistic flame of viticulture rekindled and gave life to a quality production, the energetic Alice Bonaccorsi of the Valcerasae Company and the Belgian trader Frank Cornellisen who, struck by Etna, in 2001 decides to stop and become a winemaker. When we talk about the revival of local viticulture, however, the most cited name is undoubtedly that of the oenologist Salvo Foti, a true guardian of the values ​​and beauty of this land, of which he knows every palm. He is responsible for the enhancement of the Etna viticulture, the idea of ​​associating the artisans of the entire supply chain to train and supply local labor and the production of wines of profound awareness and ethics, such as the Etna rosso Vinupetrae the rosé Vinudilice.
