Winemaker Notes
Sherazade 2019 has a brilliant ruby red color with violet reflections. The nose offers a pleasantly fruity bouquet with fragrant notes of red plum and cherry, combined with light spicy and balsamic scents. The palate is fleshy and perfectly reflects the bouquet revealing an extraordinary freshness. The fine–grained tannins, complete this fragrant and pleasant wine.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The mid-weight Donnafugata 2019 Sicilia Nero d'Avola Sherazade is rich and softly textured with blackberry and dried plum. There is a lot about this wine that reminds me of a Syrah with soft tannins and a rich embroidery of ripe fruit flavors with spice and tobacco. Even the wine's name recalls the eastern roots of this well-traveled Mediterranean variety that shares much in common with Sicily's Nero d'Avola, but some burnt hazelnut aromas and black olive remind you of the wine's true all-Sicilian DNA. This vintage offers especially good value.
Boldly opulent and robust, Nero d’Avola is Sicily’s most widely planted red grape. Nero d’Avola performs well both as a single varietal bottling and in blends. It loves hot, arid climates and Sicily's old vines are aptly head-trained close to the ground, making them resistant to strong winds. A few pioneering producers in California as well as Australia farm Nero d’Avola in the same way. Somm Secret—Nero d’Avola's other name, Calabrese, suggests origins from the mainland region of Calabria.
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.