Winemaker Notes
Deep ruby red color, with deep violet flashes. Its strength and complexity immediately stand out at the nose. Blackberry and cherry notes balanced with vanilla scent. Soon there are tobacco aromas, and towards the end balsamic notes, and elegant vegetal notes. Fruity taste, intense, elegant tannins and freshness. Very long at the palate.
Match with tasty red meat and medium and long aged cheeses. Pour into a wide crystal glass.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Sicilia Nero d'Avola Riserva Don Antonio delivers an explosive bouquet that is comprised of equal parts dark fruit, spice and savory tobacco. This wine sees 20 days of fermentation on the skins and finishes up with malolactic fermentation in steel vats. It then ages in French barrique for 12 months. It's a standard winemaking approach for an exceptional expression of Sicily's most important red grape. This is a medium to full-bodied red with ample texture and roundness on the finish.
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Wine & Spirits
This comes off of 30-year-old vines rooted in calcareous and clay soils on Sicily’s southern coast near Agrigento, on hills climbing to elevations of 1,800 feet. The area’s cool evening breezes keep the grapes cool and clean, an attribute notable in the acidity of pronounced saline notes that balance this wine’s concentrated plum flavors. An undercurrent of gritty minerality contrasts nicely with the wine’s rich, barrique-honed texture.
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Wine Spectator
This elegant, medium- to full-bodied version wraps fine, chalky tannins in a concentrated range of black cherry coulis, fig cake, graphite and star anise flavors. Long and sleek on the finish, with fragrant herb and mineral notes. Drink now through 2026.
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.