Winemaker Notes
Intense straw yellow, with light green reflections. Pleasant hints of exotic fruits, especially of grapefruit and white peach, mark the nose of this wine which shows its true identity on the palate with a pleasant flavor and freshness complemented by an extraordinary minerality and light taste sweetness.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Aromas of yellow grapefruit, preserved lemon and dried rosemary. Full-bodied. Rounded notes of baked citrus, white smoke and herbs on the palate. Lingering, chalk-like mineral finish.
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Vinous
Dusty dried flowers, wet stones, sage and apricots form a savory bouquet as the 2021 Etna Bianco Pietrarizzo opens in the glass. Silky and round, this flows across the palate with ripe yellow apple and pear accentuated by citrus and spice. Its minerality comes through in the finish, nearly salty and youthfully tense, leaving a tart lemon rind tinge that puckers the cheeks. This beautiful interpretation of Pietrarizzo is already showing very well, yet has the balance for a steady evolution.
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Wine Enthusiast
Tornatore's Pietrarizzo continues to show the depth and allure of white wines from Etna, with an intensely saline nose that offers citrus zest and slate, lifted with white-flower petals and white peaches. The palate is lemon, white pepper, seashells and gravel, but also more stone fruit and hints of prickly pear and guava. The briny, flinty foundation has an acid rebar that confirms this can take some age and become even more exciting in five to eight years.
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Wine Spectator
A compact, light- to medium-bodied white, this shows a firm spine of acidity while remaining creamy and supple in texture. Opens in the glass, with fruit flavors of creamed apple, mandarin orange peel and kiwi, while accents of elderflower and salted almond gain momentum to sing on the finish. Carricante and Catarratto.
Carricante has grown on the slopes of Sicily’s Mt. Etna for the last thousand years. It is the dominant grape in Etna Bianco DOC blends, with Catarratto as a possible minor blending partner. The best examples come from volcanic soils at higher altitudes where a large diurnal temperature shift allows slow and steady ripening and the development of Carricante’s naturally high acidity. Somm Secret—A vine variety capable of high yields if not tended to properly, Carricante gets its name from, carica, the Italian word for “load.”
A large, geographically and climatically diverse island, just off the toe of Italy, Sicily has long been recognized for its fortified Marsala wines. But it is also a wonderful source of diverse, high quality red and white wines. Steadily increasing in popularity over the past few decades, Italy’s fourth largest wine-producing region is finally receiving the accolades it deserves and shining in today's global market.
Though most think of the climate here as simply hot and dry, variations on this sun-drenched island range from cool Mediterranean along the coastlines to more extreme in its inland zones. Of particular note are the various microclimates of Europe's largest volcano, Mount Etna, where vineyards grow on drastically steep hillsides and varying aspects to the Ionian Sea. The more noteworthy red and white Sicilian wines that come from the volcanic soils of Mount Etna include Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio (reds) and Carricante (whites). All share a racy streak of minerality and, at their best, bear resemblance to their respective red and white Burgundies.
Nero d’Avola is the most widely planted red variety, and is great either as single varietal bottling or in blends with other indigenous varieties or even with international ones. For example, Nero d'Avola is blended with the lighter and floral, Frappato grape, to create the elegant, Cerasuolo di Vittoria, one of the more traditional and respected Sicilian wines of the island.
Grillo and Inzolia, the grapes of Marsala, are also used to produce aromatic, crisp dry Sicilian white. Pantelleria, a subtropical island belonging to the province of Sicily, specializes in Moscato di Pantelleria, made from the variety locally known as Zibibbo.