Passopisciaro Rosso 2010
The tropical menace: 2010 is just the vintage that would suggest such thing on Mount Etna, more than others ever before it with its plump berries and generous green growth. Nerello mascalese wine is made with a fast fermenting of the juice rather than using the skins of the grape, so looking at all that exuberance didn’t make us nervous until a thick cape of warm fog landed on top of the vineyards in mid September.
It lingered and drizzled and we fought in the rows to keep the grapes healthy with all means and as long as we could. When picking ensued we would leave patches unharvested and then we would come back to them later; this enabled us to pick until quite late.
The mild temperature helped the kind of ripening that gives a soft, non-angular wine with an unctuous fruit at its center. We left lots of fruit on the vines but even so yields were around 44hl/ha. The grapes for this wine were picked between October 18th-27th. Passopisciaro 2010 is a plumb, measured wine, silky and nicely precise.
REVIEWS
Antonio Galloni, The Wine Advocate, 94 points: “The 2010 Passopisciaro is deceptively mid-weight, but behind the light color and seeming fleeting structure lies a deeply expressive core of perfumed red berries, crushed rocks, flowers and mint. A burst of deep salinity frames the bracing finish. Quite simply, this is a stunning wine. Think of the Passopisciaro as a cross of Chambolle-Musigny and Gevrey-Chambertin and Gattinara. The Passopisciaro bottling is made from parcels in Guardiola and smaller pieces that aren’t large enough to be bottled separately. (Drinking 2013 – 2020).”
BLEND
100% Nerello Mascalese
PRODUCTION
29,000 bottles/2,416 cases
VINEYARD AGE
70-100 years old
VINEYARD ALTITUDE
500-1,000 meters/1,800-3,000 feet a.s.l. on the northern side
