Passopisciaro

ABOUT THE VINTAGE

2015 was a quick and early-ripening year on Etna. It was a year of great vitality within the plants, fertilized in the well-watered soils from the rainy winter, followed by tremendous heat during the summer. The long period of rain in early October weakened the skins, with a nasty cloud hanging and dripping humidity for weeks, leaving dew every morning. The grapes began showing color, ripeness, and sweetness quite, while maintaining their searing acidity, bringing advanced ripening across our vineyards.

The rains brought with them mold and other problems, so to keep them healthy, we returned again to the vineyards after our green harvest and began to pick out the unhealthy grapes from each bunch, one by one. We began to pick earlier in the month, starting in the lowest vineyards of Chiappemacine and Malpasso up to the vines just below Guardiola on the 16th of October. Because of the altitude, we were able to wait longer for the higher vines to come about, due to the cold, the sparser bunches, and lots of propolis to keep them healthy, finishing on October 27th.

The nerello wines from this vintage are good: mineral, salty, varietal wines. The vintage is not like 2012, not like 2014, but nonetheless a complete and structured picture of Mount Etna, with a good skeleton, high acidity, and low alcohol.