For me there was also a further reason for pleasure beyond the prospect of tasting hundreds of Sicilian wines and gazing at the snow capped peak of the Volcano Mount Etna. My sister lives, and has lived, in Marsala for 35 years and is married to a producer of fine quality Marsala Virgine. I therefore requested Assovini, the organisers of the tasting event, if they could fly me down 3 days before their event commenced. This they not only very generously agreed to do, but also flew me to Palermo instead of Catania to be closer to Marsala. I thus enjoyed three days of holiday with my family before the tastings.

The event, which took me, and some 80 other international journalists, to Sicily was "Sicilia En Primeur" organised by Assovini and Dottore Giuseppe Longo. Four days of vineyard visits and tastings with 39 participating Sicilian wineries. The only reason that I bring my personal family into the story is that my brother-in-law, Sergio Curatolo, organised a visit for me to Donnafugata, who was one of the above mentioned 39 participating wineries. This was particularly useful and gave me an extra visit, as I had chosen to visit the wineries of Eastern Sicily rather than Western and Donnafugata and Marsala are in the West and were therefore not on my schedule. I was given a one-to-one visit of their premises, including the magnificent new barrel cellar rather like a cathedral and strongly reminding me of the barrel chai of Château Margaux. This was followed by a comprehensive tasting of every one of their wines, including my very favourite Moscato Passito di Pantelleria. A superb fish lunch concluded the visit with stunningly fresh fish poached gently in sea water. My brother in law also invited Marco de Bartoli to dinner (who was not on of the participating wineries of the Assovini group) and in return for us opening a bottle of 1974 Château Latour and Château Palmer he produced a bottle of his 1986 Marsala Reserva and an even more stupendous bottle of his Grandfathers 1901 Reserva of which he only made 20 bottles.

My little holiday over, I caught a super-modern coach from Palermo to Catania airport where I was taken in charge by the Sicilia en Primeur organisation and driven, with other journalists, to the Hotel des Etrangers e Miramare in Syracuse. I had a divine view of the ocean from my bedroom and a Jacuzzi in which I soaked long and luxuriously until time to dress for our first meeting and welcome dinner. This proved to be something of a major disappointment as the chef had clearly underestimated the culinary knowledge of international wine journalists and reduced the delicious “neonato” fish to a pulp.

The arrangements were first class and great praise should be given for this. Tickets were sent to us early and correctly, full information about the programme was received by internet, choices were wide and interesting with places, winery names and people clearly indicated and detailed. Excellent assistance was provided by a lady who promoted herself my guardian angel and could not do enough to help in every way. All this was a joy and a delight and could well serve as a lesson to other such events, particularly Italian ones.

The 4 day event was divided into two halves. Two days were devoted to visiting the vineyards and their wineries and these were followed by two days devoted to tastings and conferences, with a final touch of tourism in Noto. Before leaving home we had been asked to choose, as I have already mentioned, between visiting vineyards in Eastern or Western Sicily.

Having chosen the East I was allocated two day-long tours that took in 3 wineries each day – 6 vineyards in all.

When a tour such as this one includes hundreds of wines I prefer, and indeed it is my policy, not to give copious tasting notes, as this would take far too much space and also be grossly unfair to those not mentioned. Also I prefer to use my space to evaluate the event as a whole.

In some miraculous, and thoroughly unsicilian, way these tours managed to adhere to the scheduled timetable almost to the minute. The first day was very long indeed as it was almost a 4-hour drive to the first winery, Tasca d’Almerita in Valledolmo, to see their ultra modern premises. We continued to a buffet lunch of home-produced foods at Masseria Feudo in Caltanissetta, with a tasting of all their wines and then an afternoon visit to Grottarossa Vini, also in Caltanissetta, with again a complete tasting; only arriving back at the hotel at 21.00 after our 07.00 start. We were just in time for a superb fish dinner at one of the finest restaurants in Syracuse.

The second day was a shorter one, with a trip to the very southern tip of Sicily, passing through Avola, the place of origin of the now famous Nero d’Avola grape. That day we visited Rudini, then Planeta, in Noto, for a tasting and lunch (Diego Planeta is the President of Assovini) and finally Marabino, also in Noto. Today we managed to get back by 18.00 hours in time for me to enjoy my Jacuzzi.

Frankly, although we were warmly and generously received everywhere, there was rather too much accent on bottling lines and stainless steel vats and not enough discussion on vinification and particularly on viticulture. More time in the vineyards would be welcome and the organisers might take note of this.

PATRONAGE
Ministry of the Environment and for the Preservation of the Territory and the Sea
Banca Nuova
ICE
Regional Councillorships of Agriculture and Tourism
Regional Institute of Viticulture and Wine
Province of Syracuse
Cities of Noto and Syracuse
Veronafiere

One of the most fascinating things about Sicily is the colossal number of autochthonous grape varieties. I have no intention of listing all of these but the most planted are Catarratto Blanco, Nero d’Avola, Ansonica or Inzolia, Grecanico, Grillo, Nerello Mascalese, Zibibbo, Frappato, Nerello Cappuccio, Damaschino, Perricone, Fiano and Carricante, in that order.

For sweet wine there are also Malvasia and Moscato Bianco.

Of course they have also planted Syrah, Chardonnay and all the Bordeaux as well as some other international varieties.

There is still a lot of spur pruning in this normally hot and dry climate, but more and more growers are using Spur Pruning (cordone speronato), which gives better aeration and more regular ripening here. It also somehow produces bunches with smaller berries, which is regarded as a quality factor because of the ratio of juice to skin, which in turn affects the tannin content.

Naturally, in this hot climate, it is a struggle to keep down the alcoholic strength as the grape juice is full of sugar and the grapes are very ripe. This means of course that acidities tend to be low and this is one of the reasons for the extensive use of Nero D’Avola and other local grape varieties, which retain good acidity levels even when fully ripe, giving freshness and crispness to the sun-soaked wines of the deep south.

2008 Vintage.

As always, one of my principal interests was to taste and evaluate, and then write about, the latest vintage, in this case the 2008.

From 1st October 2007 to 30th September 2008 rainfall in East Sicily was 20 inches versus an average of 25.5 inches over the last 6 years. Apart from being rather drier, temperatures were also higher but without any exceptional peaks, which is good. There were remarkable differences between day and night temperatures, which are excellent for the development of flavour compounds. There was little or no stress and grapes ripened gradually, evenly and steadily. Green harvesting was necessary and enabled vegetation and production equilibrium. The picking window was narrow and needed to be perfectly judged. Grapes were healthy with very little problem from fungus attacks or parasites, apart from some mild invasions of “leafhopper”. Phenolic maturity was reached with a rather lower sugar content than usual, which helped moderate alcoholic content in the finished wine and also kept acidities high and fresh. April-May was mild and dry. June-July was fine. Colour change was on time in July. August was hot and the very first grapes were picked on 6th (Chardonnay). There was some rain during the latter part of the month, which was welcome to avoid stress. September was hot and perfect for Nero d’Avola, Ansonica and Catarrato.

While these are the conditions specific to the regions near Marsala in the West, they can be taken as relatively accurate for Sicily as a whole, in 2008, in spite of the frequent and considerable regional variations.

A huge majority of the quality wines on the island are IGT. The big question is how high is the quality? They are IGT not so much because growers are using grapes not permitted in their DOCs, but because the vineyards are planted outside the DOC geographical delimitations. There is a strong move by the very best growers towards DOC, which gives greater protection and control over quality. Not enough and too few however. Giacomo Rallo of Donnafugata makes the very important statement, even if it is a touch optimistic, that, “Sicilian IGT has had its day. It is no longer acceptable that the quota of Sicilian wines that are bottled at the wineries remains as low as 20% (DOC) and that the other 80% is prey to speculations of every kind that are to the detriment of both the consumer and whoever makes and bottles wine in Sicily. DOC is an essential tool for the growth of fine Sicilian wines”.

I do not need to explain that this is because IGT gives a grower the right to do almost anything he pleases and it is only the rare exceptions, such as the Super Tuscans in Tuscany, where IGT wines are the very great wines superior in some cases even to the DOCs.

Tastings.

The 3rd morning was a tasting of 30 wines commented by the famous consultant oenologist Riccardo Cotarella. Did this tasting really serve its purpose? I fear not, even though it was interesting and enjoyable. Firstly Cotarella is a master at talking round in circles without saying very much that is concrete, even if his knowledge is clearly immense. Secondly we only covered a very few of the autochthonous grape varieties of the island. Thirdly we were asked to give our opinion about the viability of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Syrah in Sicily on the strength of one sample only (2 for Syrah) from we knew not where, on we knew not what soil, in we knew not what climatic conditions? This of course was totally impossible and only Cotarella knew the above mentioned factors.

The afternoon was much more productive and we were all in excellent form after a cracking good fish lunch at a local restaurant. Here all the producers and participants in Assovini and Sicilia En Primeur were standing behind tables with all their wines. Here we could discuss with them their wine making techniques, the vintages, their grape varieties, their viticulture and their vinification. It was wonderful and hugely informative. Also they were showing older vintages, which apart from being enjoyable also showed us the ageing potential of their wines. It was at this tasting, rather than anywhere else, that one became acutely aware of the huge strides being made here in Sicily both in viticulture and vinification and therefore in quality.

There are now a small number of first class, if not world class, wines being produced even if for the moment they are still painfully few. This major tasting was brilliant and should be repeated and enlarged with both more time and more space.

Dinner tonight was at the magnificent Beneventano del Bosco Palace in Syracuse as it was to be also on the following evening. Tonight a buffet, tomorrow a Gala dinner.

The 4th and last day finished our working programme with a conference in the truly historic and sensational theatre in Noto, the Teatro Vittorio Emanuele. Here we were promised 3 speakers but ended up with 8. Most of it was political and promotional, by politicians, mayors and important functionaries. One was a blatant promotional tirade by the author of a book.

One of the intended most important speeches was the summing up of the 2008 vintage by Cotarella but with less information than I have given above. Nobody was quite sure whether he ended up giving it 4 stars or 4 ½, so inexplicit were his comments.

The really valuable speech, and one of the highlights of the four days, was by the great Professor Attilio Scienza from Milan University. He said, among other things, “Sicily is a cosmos of Italy and the future. At present it has 23 DOCS, most of them entirely unknown, especially abroad. What makes wine exceptional?? The land! The soil!! We must go back to the land. In this respect Sicily has dragged its feet. Sicily is the only region in Italy that can survive without cloning other regions, whilst other regions could well clone Sicily. There is a dichotomy between terroir and the cultivar. Again WE MUST GO BACK TO THE LAND. We need pedology, geology, zoning and soil analysis to get the right cultivars on the right soil in the right micro climate. Hope is permitted. We are beginning”.

Statistics.

Sicily and its vineyards lie between 10°-12° on the Greenwich east Meridian and 36°-39° Latitude North. It covers 25,707 square kilometres (8.5% of Italy). There are 5,077,000 inhabitants.

There are 9 provinces (Trapani, Agrigento, Palermo, Caltanissetta, Catania, Syracuse, Ragusa, Messina and Etna) and numerous small islands, of which Pantelleria is a serious wine producer.

Also a huge variability of soil, climate and orographic conditions. Vines are planted from sea level to 1,100 metres. Rainfall varies according to locality from 300-1000 centimetres per annum.

Poor table wine accounts for 65% of the production, IGT for 25-30%, DOC (VQPRD) for only 4-4.5%. Average annual production is 6,998,722 hectolitres from 119,893 hectares- not so far off that of Bordeaux. Another 21,000 hectares are on the way.

In 2007 exactly 276,259 hectolitres of bottled wine were exported, but 140,422 hectolitres in bulk. The UK is Sicily’s biggest market by volume, Germany by value.
Bush vines account for 11,149 hectares, espalier pruning for 95,166 and arbour-trained 12,862. The old system used to be vertical trellising.

Trapani has 57.4% of the total land planted with vineyards. Etna just 0.3%! The surface planted with white grapes in 2007 was 76,906 (64.1%), red 42,839 (35.7%).

There are 23 DOCs but only one DOCG – Cerasuolo di Vittoria.

Value.

Perhaps the evaluation of the 4 days is the most important factor of all. Are these 4 days for the 85 journalists from all over the world valuable to the wine producers of Sicily, the fame of Sicilian wine, the journalists who attended, and finally to the consumers who will hopefully read and act on what the journalists have written??

The answer is an unequivocal YES. If the journalists do their job properly, if they have worked hard at the vineyard visits and the tastings and absorbed a goodly percentage of the knowledge and information dispensed, then they are in pole position to give Sicily and its developing wine scene the most tremendous world wide coverage. Sicily needs this desperately.

We have seen how low the figures are of quality wines, how much greater they are of table wines and IGT wines, how many DOC wines there are but how totally unknown they are outside Italy and often outside Sicily. Sicilia En Primeur is vital to encourage growers to make and show better and better wines and to invite journalists from all over the world to taste them and write about them. Sicily must show their vast variety, the richness of their heritage and its potential. Only by perpetuating this can Sicily move into the modern world and make world class wines. Not only that but make them known to the world.

Finale.

Well done Assovini, well done Dottore Giuseppe Longo, well done Sicilia En Primeur and well done all the many producers who took part. Professor Scienza summed it all up perfectly “We must go back to the land”!

I wish to make it absolutely and unequivocally clear, before I write this last section, that the “Contrade dell’Etna” tasting had NOTHING to do with ASSOVINI or SICILIA EN PRIMEUR at all. It was an entirely separate event, which happened to fall right at the end of Sicilia en Primeur. Fortunately we were able to accept Assovini’s hospitality to the full and complete their superb programme before leaving for Etna. We attended the conference, related above, in the magnificent Teatro Vittorio Emanuele, in Noto, before leaving for Etna about a one hour drive away. All we missed was a final buffet lunch and an afternoon tour of Noto.

We left in the sunshine and we arrived in the snow. The change of climate as we drove up Mount Etna was both dramatic and exciting. The soil slowly changed, becoming blacker and blacker as the percentage of lava increased. When we stopped and walked into the vineyards to pick up a handful of soil we could smell the smoky minerality and a tiny mouthful tasted of smoke, sulphur and minerals. When we arrived at Andrea Franchetti’s lovely property of “Passopisciaro”, at 850 metres above sea level, it was actually snowing quite hard and the volcanic top of Etna peeped out over the top of thick low clouds.

Andrea, who owns the famous Trinoro property where he makes his Super Tuscan wine, enjoys a rich man’s conception of rusticity. Rustic it was in a charmingly informal manner. 54 members of the Contrade dell’Etna were gathered together there to show their wines, standing behind wooden tables in a huge hangar. As it was snowing the ground outside the hangar had become a veritable ankle-deep sea of black, larval mud, which it took days to clean off my shoes and trousers! A short way up the steep slope was another hall where the wives of the growers were cooking delicious and aromatic skewers of meats and vegetables over vine-wood grills. Copious draughts of Andrea’s wine were freely available to wash them down. After our long drive we were hungry and restored ourselves liberally before attacking the serious job of tasting.

I worked long, hard and seriously at this to gain the maximum of information and knowledge in the short time at our disposal. By the time the growers were packing up their wines and leaving for their homes it was dark and I had tasted nearly every one of them. 45 growers showed their wines and everybody showed their 2008 vintage to my great delight. They also showed a number of older vintages.

The atmosphere was serious but jolly and extrovert. By closing time a number of people were drinking directly from the bottles and eschewing the use of glasses.

Andrea is a mover and a shaker. Owner and creator of Trinoro, as I have already mentioned, he is in large part responsible for getting many of the growers here in Etna together to found the Contrade dell'Etna. There are the small growers who have been here for a considerable time and more recent ones who have decided to invest in Etna, such as Tasca d’Almerita (not yet, I think, a member of the Cofrade), who has acquired two vineyards but whose wines are not yet ready to show or to market. Andrea is generous to a fault and for this tasting he put the buildings of his property entirely at the disposal of the Contrade.

What was so delightful about this tasting on the mountainside was this civilised rusticity already mentioned. There was no snobbery or one-upmanship at all. Peasants, country-folk, businessmen and aristocrats stood shoulder to shoulder in perfect harmony and friendship behind their bare wooden tables. They were warmly welcoming to one and all and entirely content to talk about their wines, or not, as the taster wished. The atmosphere was serious, while at the same time being joyful and gregarious. It radiated charm and goodwill.

It is of course impossible to start apportioning merit or points to the many wines present for tasting, either 2008 or older. Some things, however, stood out clearly about these wines produced on the volcanic slopes, some of which came from vines grown at 1,250 metres above sea level.

Firstly of course, and we keep repeating this, was the amazing black soil. Some is almost pure lava, some is mixed with sand and, lower down, some is predominantly sandy. Unsurprisingly the most larval soils produce the most interesting and individual wines. The minerality is the most striking feature and is strongly present. This is hardly surprising. There is a wonderful, fresh, bright acidity both in nearly all the Reds and the Whites.

Very few and very small amounts of international grape varieties have been planted here so far and I would not encourage them to do so. The highly individual conditions here made the one Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Gewürztraminer that I tasted completely unrecognisable from the wines grown in their home regions.

Nearly all the wines had bright, vivid, but not particularly deep or dark colours. These were most attractive. Hardly a single wine suffered from the modern fashions of over over-extraction or over-oaking. This does not mean that they were in any way lightweight, but that they showed restraint, balance and, in many cases, elegance without sacrificing strength. These were not in any way at all simple wines. A number were more rustic, but a light touch of rusticity, like a light touch of "bret", is by no means unattractive. These characteristics are good marketing points. There was an interesting salinity in many, which went perfectly hand-in-hand with minerality. Above all, and this was delightful, they showed honesty and transparency with good fruit and balance and little or no make-up or artifice. They showed great individuality without making a fuss about it.

I suspect that by now all the best soils on Etna are taken and that newcomers and latecomers will have to make do with second best. There are number of these. Etna is proving an immense attraction for many. Things are developing quickly, wines are improving rapidly and it is going to be fascinating to follow the progress of Etna wines over the years to come. Indubitably, the Passopisciaro vineyard of Andrea is among the best and was one of the first.

Wine of course has been made here for centuries, since time immemorial, but I had not realised that some of the early comers of the recent developments had been able to acquire vineyards with vines of up to 90 years old. As for grape varieties these are numerous but our old friends Nerello Capuccio and Nerello Mascalese are ever present. Nero d’Avola is not absent either.

Quantities are small. I have already shown that Etna only accounts for 0.3% of Sicily’s production. I would like to see them stick to and develop their autochthonous grape varieties, ignore the international ones and make this one of their strongest selling and marketing points.

However, one of our Sicilia En Primeur party, a journalist from Shanghai, said that if they wanted to sell their wines in his country then they should concentrate on the international and better-known grape varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay and slowly introduce their local varieties on the back of them. This is interesting and just shows that it takes all sorts of people with all sorts of opinions to make up the world we live in today.

Etna is above all fascinating rather than important. Quantities will always be small, but if they are very good they make for wonderful and exciting experiences for the adventurous and the intrepid. Thank you Cofrade dell’ Etna.