Mount Etna Comes to NYC
Etna: A Snapshot of Wine History
The wines of Mount Etna are some of my favorites, so I was excited to attend this Wine Spectator sponsored tasting of wines from the region.
It’s hard to believe that when I received my diploma from the Wine and Spirit Educational Trust in 2009, Sicilian wine was hardly available in Manhattan wine shops. And today, the wines of Mount Etna grace the tables of the world’s finest Michelin-rated restaurants.
Though the consorzio offered a walk-around tasting of the wines, I was able to attend an earlier VIP masterclass.
I enjoyed that the speaker sprinkled in her personal history of Italy, first as a student and then as a wine scholar, sharing those anecdotes as she guided us through a tutored tasting of the wines.
One of her core concepts was describing Etna wine as a snapshot of history.
It is an especially appropriate description for a wine region where the past and present seem to exist side by side.
I’ve been following Sicilian wine for years, writing about many of the families who helped transform its wine industry.
Sicily’s current reputation for distinctive wines from indigenous grapes and dramatically different terroirs is relatively recent.
For much of the 20th century, the island was better known for Marsala and for producing large quantities of wine, much of it destined for blending.
That began changing as producers increasingly focused on lower yields, better vineyard management, native varieties and wines capable of expressing where they came from.
Etna has become one of the most exciting examples of that change.
Old and New at the Same Time
Old and New at the Same Time
Perhaps that’s because Etna contains so many contradictions.
It is an ancient wine territory on an active volcano. Vineyards grow on volcanic soils of different ages and at different elevations. Old vineyards exist alongside a contemporary generation of wines that has captured international attention.
The speaker made an interesting point about old vines during the tasting. We tend to associate vine age automatically with quality. Her argument was more nuanced.
Old doesn’t necessarily mean better.
It means different.
An older vineyard gives us another opportunity to understand what vine age, site and time can contribute to a wine. That seems particularly relevant on Etna, where the history beneath the vines is itself constantly changing.
Sicily isn’t one terroir. It is an island of dramatically different soils, climates, elevations and indigenous grape varieties. Etna may be its most vivid demonstration.
Even the Wine Doesn’t Stand Still
During the seminar, the speaker returned to another kind of change: what happens to the wine after it reaches the glass.
She had tasted the wines before the seminar to check the bottles. By the time we tasted them together, some had already changed. Fifteen minutes later, they could show something different again.
Anyone who tastes wine regularly knows that moment. You return to a glass and discover something you hadn’t noticed before.
The speaker called it the “chameleonic nature of wine.”
She also questioned why the ability of Etna wines to age is still discussed with uncertainty. Rather than endlessly asking what these wines might become, she suggested giving them some age and finding out.
That brings us back to her idea of Etna wine as a snapshot of history.
A snapshot captures only one moment.
On Etna, the vines continue to age. The volcano continues to shape the landscape. Producers continue to explore individual sites. And the wine itself continues to evolve after it enters the bottle and even after it reaches our glasses.
Perhaps that’s one reason Etna continues to fascinate me.
Every time we return, the snapshot may be a little different.
