2018 Alberelli di Giodo Sicilia Nerello Mascalese

Carlo Ferrini, who has been visiting Sicily as a winemaker for over 15 years, could not resist starting something under the fascination of Mount Etna and its main grape variety, Nerello Mascalese. That was the beginning of Alberelli di Giodo, a wine whose first harvest was 2016. The vineyard is just over an acre in size and is located very high at no less than 950 meters on the slopes of the volcano. The vines are still original and not grafted, so pre-phylloxera vines of 100 years or older.

The elevation and northern aspect are ideal for Nerello Mascalese, and the black, pomace soils yield wines with utterly distinctive body and fruit. Alberelli di Giodo is aged for 12 months in small 5-hl French oak barrels. The result is a wine of extreme refinement that remarkably exhibits the minerality classic of the volcano-growing region. The label also features the figure of the grape variety and depicts Nerello Mascalese on top of Mount Etna.

The Alberelli di Giodo Sicilia Nerello Mascalese Etna Rosso is beautiful ruby red in the glass with plums, dark berries, orange peel and lemons in the glass and these aromas are reflected on the palate. The wine is full bodied, layered and tasty with juicy fruit. The wine needs time to open, so be sure to aerate it in its younger years. Great wine from very old vines.

This is a unique Etna wine of which only a few thousand bottles are made. The first volume immediately received 94+/100 Parker and this 2018 volume received 95/100 points from James Suckling