Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Enticing scents of wild red berry, baking spice, aromatic herb and a balsamic note waft out of the glass. The elegant, juicy palate doles out succulent wild cherry, crushed raspberry, cinnamon and a note of white pepper while a mineral note backs up the finish. It's well balanced, with bright acidity and ultrafine tannins.
Editors' Choice -
Jeb Dunnuck
A blend of 100% Nerello Mascalese, the 2014 Etna Rosso is a perfumed wine that has tons of ripe cherry, currants, dried flowers, dried earth and underbrush/forest floor-like aromas and flavors. With a Pinot Noir-like elegance and purity, this medium-bodied, seamless red just glides across the palate, has fine tannin, and an undeniable minerality on the finish. It's impressive, as well as a great value.
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James Suckling
Beautiful plum, peach and orange peel aromas and flavors. Full to medium body, fine tannins and a crisp finish. Precise and focused. New Etna wine from Cusumano. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This is the base red from the Cusumano brothers' Etna estate. The 2014 Etna Rosso (100% Nerello Mascalese) is tempered and elegant. It offers pretty ruby color saturation and bright aromatic intensity. The bouquet delivers wild berry, cassis, dry earth and tobacco. It is aged in large oak casks for just six months, so you really get a good taste of the fresh fruit at hand. Grapes are harvested and blended from three separate vineyards, Verzella, Pietramarina and Feudo di Mezzo. With 23,500 bottles produced, this is another recommended value buy.
Rating: 91+
Extending across the variable volcanic soils of the slopes of Mt. Etna at some of the highest vineyard altitudes in all of Europe—up to 3,300 feet—Nerello Mascalese is one of Sicily’s most noble red varieties. It makes a beautifully aromatic, firm, cellar-worthy but pale-hued red often comparable to a fine Burgundy or Barbaresco. Somm Secret—Nerello Mascalese takes its name from the black color of its grapes, nerello, and the Mascali plain between Mt. Etna and the coast where it is believed to have originated.
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.