Spring vines in Trapani Province
Tag: wine
Crispelle For San Martino
November 11 is La Festa di San Martino, Saint Martin’s Day. Each province in Sicily celebrates differently. In the town of Chiaramonte Gulfi (Ragusa Province), citizens eat sweet and savory crispelle, like these made with fennel seeds, pictured, together with cooked wine. Importantly, the Feast of San Martino marks when wine makers taste the novello,…
52 Reasons to Love Sicily | #14. Sublime Wine
With 485 wineries and 8000 grape growers across a diversity of soils and climates, it is a leader in Italy that in recent years has focused on making very high quality wines. Plan ahead and make an appointment for a tasting and vineyard tour. You may even want to stay at a winery–there are many…
Drinking Sangue In Palermo
Yes, “Sangue,” meaning blood. It’s a sweet wine typical to Palermo–a cross between Marsala and Zibibbo. The locals drink it at the Taverna Azzurra in La Vucciria market. And here, Eric and I are raising a glass–definitely to a sweeter time. Hang in there, we’ll get through this! I got through drinking Sangue, after all….
Time To Taste The Novello
Tomorrow, November 11, for the Feast of Saint Martin, vintners seek the first taste of their year’s work to gauge how the new wine (or novello) is progressing.
Today’s Sicily Wine-making Report
This grape mosto may not look too exciting to you, but it is exciting for winemakers! Currently, mosto, or grape juice, is in the midst of the fermentation process. Wine making takes time and patience and practice. See the stainless steel “barrel” in the background? That’s where the magic is happening right now (in a…
The Abundance Of Mount Etna In Sicily
When you walk among the vines at a vineyard like Benanti Viticoltori with our friends at Etna Wine School on the slopes of Mount Etna, you see for yourself what those volcanic soils I mentioned yesterday produce. In this case, outstanding grapes for wine-making. But not only! The Etna region is known for its pistachios,…
The Vendemmia In Sicily
Currently throughout Sicily grape growers are measuring the sugar, acid, and tannin levels of their grapes in preparation for the annual vendemmia, or grape harvest. Up to now, wine-making has been about caring for the vines, pruning the growth, and ensuring that the fruit has received enough air, sunlight, and water for an abundant and…
Etna Wines Plus Excellent Company Equals A Memorable Evening
It’s hard to capture the sense of enthusiasm and interest that flowed through us all last evening during our Etna Wine Box with Guided Synchronous Online Tasting and Discussion. This photo only gives a glimpse into the more than two hours spent on a virtual visit to Europe’s largest, most active volcano with author Benjamin…
A Palmento On Etna (Where The Magic Happened)
A palmento is a building and the antique mechanism inside of it where wine grapes were made into juice (mosto) that eventually became wine. This outstanding palmento photographed at Benanti vineyard offers visitors an opportunity to understand the wine-making process from ancient times and how that translates to today’s stainless steal, squeaky-clean laboratories and cantinas….