Benanti Etna Rosso 2022

Profile & Story

Benanti farms on Etna from Viagrande, on the volcano's south-eastern flank. The family's Sicilian branch dates to 1734, and at the end of the nineteenth century Giuseppe Benanti began making wine from local Etna grapes. In 1988, driven by the ambition to reach standards of absolute excellence on Etna and to champion its indigenous varieties, he founded the present winery, working alongside Professor Rocco Di Stefano of the Experimental Institute for Oenology at Asti, Professor Jean Siegrist of INRA Beaune, the Langhe winemakers Gian Domenico Negro and Marco Monchiero, and their young Etna counterpart Salvo Foti. That work made Giuseppe Benanti a precursor of contemporary Etna viticulture, and by 1998 the estate had become the first Etna winery present on every slope of the DOC. In 2010 it completed a five-year project isolating and propagating four proprietary indigenous Etna yeast strains. His sons Antonio and Salvino now run the estate, which makes around 250,000 bottles a year. The Etna Rosso draws Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio from the northern, south-eastern and south-western slopes.

Pairing Recommendation

A versatile wine that takes red meats and cheeses but works equally with fish or white meats, and is very well suited to by-the-glass drinking.