An eruption of intense flavour from Etna

published 17 July 2020

2019 Le Sabbie dell’Etna, Etna Bianco, Firriato, Sicily, Italy

(£12.99, 63 branches of Waitrose; £13.02, drinksandco.co.uk)

Etna wine is very much en vogue. It is popping up everywhere and you inevitably have to pay up for the privilege of drinking wines from this north-east corner of Sicily, grown in the surrounds of the great volcano. I am not as enamoured of these wines as many, but I understand their appeal.

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It is the lava-rich soils that give the whites and reds such a notable flavour. The intense minerality is unmistakable and it brings with it a dry, grainy, raspy and somewhat peculiar sensation on the back of the palate. It’s like lobbing a few pumice stones into your glass! Etnan whites and reds are usually made from somewhat lacklustre indigenous grapes and the wines that lack intensity seem to submit to their volcanic roots.

But there are a few serious wineries whose wines are genuinely fascinating, benefiting from superb intensity and great balance, and my chosen white is one of the best-value I have tasted in years. Made from local white grapes carricante and catarratto and underpinned with the tell-tale volcanic signature, there is more fruit here that anyone could wish for and the peach and greengage notes are perfectly matched to the sour, pithy minerality.

As more decent wines emerge from Etna, we might be witnessing one of the most welcome renaissances in the modern wine world: viticulture has been practised here since the Neolithic era.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition’s Communicator of the Year (MatthewJukes.com)

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Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’. He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner.

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy. His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.