WEINWISSER | The magical wines of Etna

For many, Etna is currently the most exciting wine-growing region in Europe. Because what has happened here in the past two decades is simply phenomenal. For a long time, Sicilian wines were seen as Italy's answer to the New World. However, after the boom in international grape varieties, winemakers are now focussing on local varieties. Particularly in the Etna hotspot, but also in other growing areas of the island, independent wines with a character of origin are being produced!

WEINWISSER was founded in 1992 by the Swiss wine pope René Gabriel and the food critic Wolfram Meister as the Swiss equivalent of Robert Parker's Wine Advocate. Since the well-known wine critic Giuseppe Lauria (formerly a member of the chief taster team at Gault Millau) took over as editor-in-chief, it has been significantly modernised and its content has been sharpened with a focus on "fine wines" from all over the world with well-founded and comprehensible ratings.

In his last release, Giuseppe focussed in detail on the exceptional wines and current vintages from the slopes of Europe's highest active volcano. The development of this region is impressively dynamic, the editor-in-chief of WEINWISSER recalls: "Back then, there were just a handful of winegrowers at work there. Today, there are around 170 producers who are making a name for themselves with their wines on the various slopes. When I drove up the narrow winding roads to Etna for the first time in 2003, two things immediately caught my eye: on the one hand, the omnipresent solidified black lava flows, which have an unreal character - often populated by yellow-glowing gorse bushes - a veritable sea of black and yellow that evokes associations with the south curve of the BVB football club among football fans. Some of the vineyards are similarly steep. On the other hand, there are the sometimes steep, often elaborately terraced vineyards with their very old, gnarled Alberello vines, which are fortunately still widespread here. The fact that in recent years the old Etna grape varieties such as Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio for the reds and Carricante and Minella for the whites have also come more into focus is a logical continuation of this return to the past."

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