Another day on Mount Etna. Weather continues to be a bit of rain, a flash of sun, another sprinkle. At the end of the day, a full-out storm hit the mountain with hurricane winds, rain, and driving snow higher up. Could be an interesting trip tomorrow to Lipari on the hydrofoil.
The day started with I Custodi: a tour of the magnificent Vigna Centeraria, Mario Paoluzi's spectacular vineyard of ancient albarello-trained vines, some plants up to 250 yrs old. Eventually there will be a grand-cru bottling from this vineyard, but for now the grapes are used for Aetneus, the winery's spectacular "regular" Etna Rosso. We then drove to the Moganazzi vineyard, where at some point the new cellar of I Custodi will be completed. Eventually, there are plans to get to 100,000 bottles and to bring all the winery's production here, which compared to productions that are currently counted by much smaller multiples of a thousand, is very exciting.
Lunch was with Salvo, at his newly-acquired old palmento in Milo, on the east side of the volcano. A palmento is an ancient cantina, typical of Sicily, in which grapes were crushed by foot, macerated in vats of volcanic stone, and finally pressed by means of a gigantic lever made from a chestnut beam, supported with a stone counterweight, all flowing through the system by gravity. Strictly speaking, the use of the palmento is now not allowed in Sicily due to what I believe Salvo would call government overreach - concerns about hygiene. True that the volcanic vats are probably difficult to clean, but over the years, Salvo explained, the flora of yeast lives on and the wines taste not only of the terroir of the vineyard, but also of the cellar.
The gentlemen in the photo (left to right: Massimo Rufino, Mario Paoluzi of I Custodi, Thomas Schuster) are tasting a wine that (may have) been made by Salvo in his palmento, and aging in two buried anfore of 800 and 1200 liters that Salvo purchased and had blessed by priests in Georgia (not the one in America). In another photo, the wine is drawn by Salvo's son and likely successor Simone. The wine was incredibly pure, aromatic, elegantly balanced: pure Salvo Foti.
