Winemaker Notes
The wine is red with garnet highlights, offering an elegant bouquet of dark wild cherries, earthiness, tar, and grilled herbs, while on the palate it is big, rich, and rustic with depth and flavor that confirm the nose, carrying an alcohol content of 14 percent and best served at 60 to 64 degrees Fahrenheit in large bowl stemware, and it may be enjoyed on its own or paired with poultry, pork, game, lasagna, or braised meats.
Blend: 95% Nerello Mascalese 5% Nerello Cappuccio
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This is another beauty with a point of ripeness at its core that recalls soft raspberry, cherry and sweet rose tea. The Graci 2022 Etna Rosso Feudo di Mezzo is extremely clean and vertical in personality. The ripeness is noticeable but does not take away from the complexity of the wine. This vintage offers more volume and softness.
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James Suckling
Fruity yet layered with red and black cherries, cinnamon and a floral edge. Medium-bodied. It shows crunchy style on the palate with crisp acidity and chalky yet ripe tannins. A bit warming in the finish but otherwise balanced.
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Wine Spectator
Compact and minerally up front, where the tarry overtone and dense, fine-grained tannins hold sway. But this opens nicely in the glass, revealing sweet and juicy notes of dried raspberry and cherry fruit, red licorice, and incense. Bright, blood orange peel acidity focuses this through the spiced finish. Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio. Best from 2028 through 2038. 230 cases made, 56 cases imported.
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.