Vino di Anna Qvevri 'Don Alfio' 2016
- Region
- Italy » Sicilia » IGP Terre Siciliane
- Type
- red still, dry
- Producer
- Vintage
- 2016
- Grapes
- Nerello Mascalese, Alicante Henri Bouschet, Nerello Cappuccio
- Alcohol
- 13.5
- Sugar
- 1
- Volume
- 750 mL
- Cellar
- not available
Ratings
Hehe. This wine is like my little brother - uncouth, yet with potential. And we all expect it to develop into a beautiful butterfly (wine, not my brother). I understand why it's against the UN convention to serve it without decanting, but I prefer it rough. Clear medium garnet colour (if you avoid sediment). It is aromatic and shows some age: red fruits, mulberry, underbrush, spices, tobacco, and a slight touch of VA. Bone dry, full-bodied, crisp with high and dry tannin. Yet, it's well-balanced. Long aftertaste with flavours of red berries, leather and wet forest floor. There is some minerality. Not a simple one.
The last time I tasted this wine more than a year ago and after reading some tasting notes from other people decided to check it's development. Intense bouquet full of small red fruits, mulberry, underbrush, fresh leather, anise and other spices with pleasant VA touch. On the palate it is still green with powerful and harsh tannin and fruit-forward finish. I want to taste it in 5 years.
I have to repeat myself, Don Alfio is very tasty, sophisticated and multilayered wine. Elegant combination of red fruits and underbrush. Hints of red meat and pickles. Tasty, powerful, perfectly balanced. Has potential, which makes me wonder how it will taste in few years. But I doubt that I will get an answer, cause I am going to drink everything now.
I simply love this wine. Dumplings with strawberries, covered with cracklings and cream, mulberries and underbrush, hints of pickles. Elegant, complex with slight funky touch in the taste, long finish and very tasty. I want more.
Alright, I didn't expect it to be so damn good. Burst of strawberries and mulberries, violets and underbrush, subtle hints of pickles. Elegant, savoury and tarty. Juicy with very long finish. Definitely my style. Bottle ended too fast :(
About Producer
There was a time when Sabotage organised Friday parties near Yellow Place, Goodwine. This is where Ivan Omelchenko introduced me to Vino di Anna, and this is where he started to joke that I'd become their brand ambassador. While I don't drink their wines often these days, I still hold a special place for these folks in my heart.
Vino di Anna is a small, family wine estate situated high on the northern slopes of Mount Etna, near the village of Solicchiata. The heart of the domain is in Contrada Crasà, where the winery and family home are located. The rest of the vineyards are situated in different contrade (historic lava flows) from the secluded 100-year-old Don Alfio vineyard in Contrada Piano Filici, above the village of Rovittello, to the renowned Contrada Rampante, above Passopisciaro. The white vineyards are concentrated on the north-western side of the volcano in Contrada Nave, not far from the estate’s Grenache-dominant vineyard in Contrada Tartaraci, near the village of Maletto.
Anna Martens and Eric Narioo made their first wine together on Mount Etna in 2008. In 2010, the couple purchased their first vineyard of old bush vines of Nerello Mascalese in Contrada Crasà, along with a neighbouring, derelict Etnean palmento and wine cellar. Today, with a team of locals, they cultivate organically eight hectares of terraced land, divided into small vineyard plots and olive groves scattered across the north face of the volcano. Grapes are hand-harvested in September and October and fermented into a range of natural wines, expressive of their terroir. The estate also produces extra virgin olive oil and rears the rare Sicilian black bee.
Eric and Anna aim to make wines that are tasty, expressive, true to their provenance, and reflective of the growing season each year. All of the vineyards are tended by hand and farmed without the use of any agrochemicals. Only healthy ripe grapes are harvested by hand and brought to the wine cellar. Here, there is minimal intervention; fermentation is by indigenous yeasts at ambient temperature. No additives are used. Wines are vinified and aged in lava stone, chestnut and French wood, Georgian qvevri, glass, and stainless steel. They are naturally clarified by gravity and are not filtered. Zero or minuscule quantities of SO₂ are added, only when it is deemed necessary for the stability of the wine.
Vino di Anna’s qvevri wines are fermented and macerated in Georgian qvevris, handmade by one of the few remaining artisans, Zaaliko Bodjadze, near Makatubani, Georgia. Zaaliko and his sons source clay from the high Caucasus mountains, shape the vessels by hand, and coat them with beeswax. Eight qvevris were delivered to Vino di Anna in 2013 and were buried in a specially built-underground cellar at the back of the winery.