Winemaker Notes
Intense straw yellow, with light green reflections. Pleasant hints of exotic fruits, especially of grapefruit and white peach, mark the nose of this wine which shows its true identity on the palate with a pleasant flavor and freshness complemented by an extraordinary minerality and light taste sweetness.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
A pale yellow color, the 2022 Etna Bianco Pietrarizzo has a more focused personality, with lovely petrol-like accents, fresh white peach, floral perfume, honeyed fresh lemon, and stony earth. Medium-bodied, it's got fantastic tension and sapidity. It was aged in neutral and used French oak barrels.
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Wine Spectator
A lovely range of creamed apple, baked peach, lemon oil and Marcona almond is underscored by a tangy streak of salinity, working in tandem with well-cut acidity to bring fine definition to the round and creamy profile. Fragrant spice and mountain herb notes linger on the finish. Carricante and Catarratto. Drink now through 2035. 1,583 cases made, 1,583 cases imported.
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James Suckling
Restrained lemon peel, almond paste and smoky highlights. Smooth attack with crisp acidity, good integration and maturity, lean to medium body and an appley finish. Carricante and a splash of catarratto.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Tornatore 2022 Etna Bianco Pietrarizzo is 97% Carricante and 3% Catarratto, aged in large oak casks for five months. Pietrarizzo has more elevation, and therefore more freshness, at 700 meters above sea level and is one of the highest plots farmed by this estate. You also get a crunchy quality of fruit with unripe peach and crispy apple over a mid-weight finish.
Carricante has grown on the slopes of Sicily’s Mt. Etna for the last thousand years. It is the dominant grape in Etna Bianco DOC blends, with Catarratto as a possible minor blending partner. The best examples come from volcanic soils at higher altitudes where a large diurnal temperature shift allows slow and steady ripening and the development of Carricante’s naturally high acidity. Somm Secret—A vine variety capable of high yields if not tended to properly, Carricante gets its name from, carica, the Italian word for “load.”
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.