Winemaker Notes
The Contrada PC 2022 is mineral, savory, and vibrant. The bouquet is complex and pronounced, with white-skinned summer fruits intertwined with citrus sensations and notes of bread crust. The taste reveals a superb balance and a long, persistent finish.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
A bright yellow hue, the 2022 Bianco Contrada PC is a Chardonnay from the Contrada Passo Chianche, situated between 950 and 1000 meters in elevation. It was aged for 16 months in large Slavonian casks and cement tanks. This is an exceptional and structured wine, with profound saltiness and density, fantastic notes of pure, ripe lemon, white pepper, floral perfume, and ripe notes of melon rind, white peach, and salted citrus. Full-bodied, it has electric energy and persistence, as well as great tension and nervous energy throughout.
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James Suckling
Love tasting this. Subtle cooked apples, sandalwood, white roses, apple blossoms and sliced pears on the nose. Medium- to full-bodied, this has precise, crunchy fruit and a spicy, pleasantly bitter aftertaste from the stone, ash and flint. From chardonnay planted at 950 meters of altitude.
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Decanter
Sage, mint, apricot skin and lime marmalade scents pull you in to an intense, juicy and wonderfully sapid palate, with a lovely lick of tropical fruits and some floral white peach. Poised and zesty, with a stoniness on the mid-palate, it's an inspired bottling from high up on the Etna's north slope. Estate director Vincenzo Lo Mauro believes that the Chardonnay Passopisciaro grows in Passochianci – a subzone of Guardiola reaching up to 970 metres above sea level – is the highest in Europe. Contrada PC is 100% Chardonnay from this plot, and is almost reminiscent of grand cru Chablis.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Made with Chardonnay that is cultivated at an extreme 900 to 1,000 meters above sea level, this is a very special wine. The Passopisciaro 2022 Contrada PC is very attractive off the bat with a beautiful combination of white flower, candied pear, spice and crushed stone. The wine offers intensity and brightness with a firm, almost salty finish. This 5,600-bottle release is fermented in oak casks and aged in wood for 10 months (with six months on the lees).
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Vinous
The 2022 Bianco Contrada PC lifts from the glass with an air of sweet spice, giving way to nuances of kiwi, lime zest and white smoke. It sweeps across the palate with soothingly round textures and ripe orchard fruits, taking on a gentle mineral tension toward the close. This is understated yet refined throughout, leaving a twang of sour citrus and a salty sensation to fade slowly on the finish.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
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.