Passopisciaro Contrada ‘S’ Sciaranuova Nerello Mascelese 2022

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

Check out all the 🌋Lava Juice!🍇

Contrada Sciaranuova (Contrada S) is located at 850 m (2,800 ft) above sea level on Mount Etna. In Sicilian, “sciara nuova” means “new lava flow.” The vines here are planted on relatively new lava flow from the 1600s that has turned into thick gravel. The wines produced from this site are bright, aromatic, and have a rich taste of fermented hay and a dusty herbal quality. We own 1 hectare of this tiny cru and produce about 2,000 bottles annually of our Contrada S.

About Passopisciaro

Read all about our extensive tastings of Passopisciaro wines in our Wine Bites Mag article “Passopisciaro the Jurasic Park of Wine! Ancient Vines Revived to Create the Liquid Essence of Etna!”

The article includes a look at all the Contrade from both 2012 and 2013.

Explore Etna with our primer “Getting Your Head Around Sicily’s Mount Etna”

Listen 🎧to Andrea Franchetti’s Podcast with Levi Dalton

Passopisciaro is at once both a fossil and a piece of modern art! Vines aged from 70-120 years old grow on the slopes of a volcano at altitudes that make noses bleed. Less than 20 years ago these wines were unknown, the Grandfathers of today’s revolutionists made simple wine from overcropped vineyards.

Today the next generations are pushing the boundaries making wines from 100% Nerello Mascalese. Often referred to as a hybrid of the great Nebbiolo’s from Barolo and Pinot Noir’s from Burgundy, Nerello Mascalese is capable of making wines with real personality! They’ve taken something incredibly ancient, gone back to the DNA and started again. In under a decade the evolution of these wines have accelerated through a millennia.

Vines have been nurtured back to balance, tended by hand on terraced vineyards that one in every  3 years find themselves under ash clouds hurled into the sky from the very mountain they are planted on, a volcano, Mt Etna!

The 2022 Vintage at Passopisciaro

The big topic of discussion focused on the 2022 vintage and the new releases that were just a month away from bottling at the winery. I am stunned by the harmonious nature of these wines. The 2022 vintage was defined by drought conditions that lasted through the majority of the year. While warm and, at times, unseasonably hot, the real problem was the need for water. In the case of Passopisciaro, hail events resulted in a loss of 25% of their production. The combination of dry warmth and hail forced the team to harvest ten days earlier than usual, hand-sort the fruit berry-by-berry and shorten maceration times. However, the results are really quite special. The year’s conditions did not affect the acid balance in the wines. The 2022s mix elegance and soaring aromatics with an energetic core that makes them wildly appealing today but with the balance to evolve over the medium term. I’m looking forward to tasting them again once in bottle.

Eric Guido, Vinous

Where in the World is Passopisciaro?

Passopisciaro is located in the village of Passopisciaro with the Cantina in Contrada Guardiola on the northern slopes of Mount Etna, Sicily, Italy.