Day 16: Aci Castello
A day at Etna wines
Valeria, who we have home exchanged with told us about the urban winery that her son works at and so we decided to book a Sicilian lunch, wine tasting and self guided tour.
The Uber driver dropped us just outside of Catania but in quite a suburban area. Inside the gates the grounds were tranquil and full of plants.
First we met Nicolas, Valeria’s son and it soon became apparent that he is running the place. We were shown the beautiful original 17th century building where they produced wines by hand until the 1970’s . The original wine press and barrels were still there and the building has been preserved to show traditional wine making methods.
After a tour it was explained that Nicolas’ extended family had shut the winery back fifty years ago when they found labour costs too high to run profitably. Seven years ago a group of eight cousins decided to crowd fund to reopen the vineyard and replant the vines.
It takes five years to produce wine so they only have wines from the last two years and each year they plan to plant extra vines.
The lunch consisted of a number of appetisers including tomato jam, olives, artichokes, panzanella bread salad.
This was followed by a creamy risotto with a topping of sun dried tomatoes and the sweet tomato jam. we also tried a homemade pasta and local veal sausages with spinach. Each dish was accompanied by a chosen wine.
The final one was the red produced at the vineyard.
After the meal we wandered round the grounds which afforded great views of Etna.
Later Nicolas sat and chatted with us when the others had left and explained the ethos and plan for the vineyard. He explained that his mother Valeria had been a driving force in the regeneration of the vineyard.
We were surprised that she had generously arranged for us to be given a bottle of the 2022 red.
It’s such a pity we are flying back with cabin bags only. Well there’s only one thing for it………..
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