Parentage — Ancient Sicilian variety of the Etna slopes, kin to Sangiovese
sour cherry
orange peel
rose
volcanic ash
dried herbs
Budbreak
Mid-season
Maturity
Very late — among Italy's last harvests, into late October on Etna
Leaf
Medium, pentagonal, five-lobed; light green
Bunch
Medium to large, conical, elongated, semi-loose
Berry
Medium, ovoid, violet-black with thin skin — the wines stay pale
The grape of the volcano. Nerello Mascalese, an ancient Sicilian kin of Sangiovese, climbs the slopes of Etna on terraces of black lava dry stone, in places to a thousand metres — among Europe's highest red-wine vineyards. Some vines are prephylloxera and still on their own roots, spared by the mountain's young, sandy volcanic soils.
The wine confounds every expectation of Sicily: pale, perfumed and tense, all sour cherry, orange peel, ash and rose, closer in silhouette to a fine red of the north than to the island's sun-soaked plains. The "Burgundy of the Mediterranean" rush of the 2000s brought growers, capital and controversy, and made the mountain's contrade some of the most argued-over terroirs in the wine world.
In the blend
Share of this grape in a typical blend of each wine