Why it matters
The producer
Nino Bevilacqua is an engineer from Palermo. In 2007 he bought a set of abandoned vineyard plots on the northwestern slopes of Etna, inside the park that bears the volcano's name, and spent the following year rebuilding what he found there: stone terrace walls, neglected vines, and original palmenti, the traditional lava-rock wine grottos used for pressing grapes before modern cellars arrived. The winery opened in 2008.
The grape is Nerello Mascalese throughout. From those plots in the contrada Bocca d'Orzo, at elevations between 650 and 950 metres, the estate makes a red, a white, and a sparkling wine. The white, Ciuri, is pressed entirely from Nerello Mascalese, making it one of the rare blanc de noirs produced on Etna.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Etna is a working volcano and an active agricultural zone. The northwestern slopes sit inside Etna Natural Park and carry the Etna DOC appellation, which covers red and white wines made from specified native varieties. Nerello Mascalese is the principal red grape of the DOC and dominates the zone's most serious production.
Bocca d'Orzo is a contrada, a named geographic district, on the northwestern face of the mountain. The terraces there climb from 650 metres to 950 metres above sea level. That altitude shapes the wines directly: ripening is slower than on lower Etna slopes, acidity stays higher, and the fruit reads as savory and mineral rather than full and warm. The cooler register at Bocca d'Orzo separates the estate's bottles from Etna reds grown in warmer, lower contrade.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
All harvesting is done by hand. Much of the vineyard work, including hoeing and vine management, is also manual, a practical necessity on narrow stone terraces where machinery cannot move. At the end of each winter, sheep graze between the vine rows. The flocks soften and fertilize the volcanic earth before vineyard teams hoe the ground after they have passed. It is a farming rhythm that pre-dates the estate and connects its work to the older agricultural history of the mountain.
The estate does not hold organic certification. As of 2016, chemical sprays were not used in the vineyards, a position shared by Alessia Bevilacqua at the time.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range has four positions: two reds, one white, and one sparkling, all built on Nerello Mascalese.
Cirneco is the Etna DOC red and the central bottle of the range. Medium-bodied, with fresh tannin and a savory, volcanic character, it carries the altitude of Bocca d'Orzo in every part of the palate. The cooler ripening at 650 to 950 metres keeps the tannin tight and the acidity alive. It is not a rich or heavy red.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Cirneco is the first bottle to reach for. It is the Etna DOC red, Nerello Mascalese grown at altitude on volcanic soil, and it carries everything the estate is doing in a single glass. The tannin is fresh and the fruit is savory, not sweet. The acidity runs through the finish rather than disappearing in the mid-palate. There is no heavy oak and no extracted weight. It is an altitude wine from a restored stone terrace, and it tastes like that.