2022 Tenuta delle Terre Nere ‘San Lorenzo’ Etna Rosso

JS97 On the nose and the palate, wonderful cherry-blossom and rose-petal characters to the dark cherries and sliced blood oranges. Medium- to full-bodied with balance and intensity, this goes on for minutes. The citrus is hypnotizing. Drink or hold.
VIN95 Remarkably pretty, the 2022 Etna Rosso San Lorenzo wafts up with an array of dried flowers, cloves and lavender. Lifted and finessed, this opens with a hint of candied orange that enlivens its core of tart wild berries. Brisk acidity keeps the experience fresh throughout. Staining the palate in concentration, the San Lorenzo tapers off gently tannic and crunchy in feel, leaving gorgeous floral perfumes to linger on. This is the understated darling of the Terre Nere portfolio, and I expect that cellaring will bring even more complexity.
Estate Notes: 100% Nerello mascalese • Production area: contrada San Lorenzo, township of Randazzo (Catania) • Extension of the vineyard: 8 ha with yields of 5 tons/ha • Deep volcanic soil with some stones • Exposure: Northern slope of the Mount Etna, 700-750 meters a.s.l. • 50 – 100-year-old vines • Harvested in the first ten days of October • Vinification: alcoholic fermentation under controlled temperature (28-30° C) • Aging: spontaneous malolactic fermentation and aging in French oak barriques, tonneaux. • Bottling after 16-18 months of wood aging and 1 month in steel. • Annual production: 900 9L cases The terroir in contrada San Lorenzo is originated by lava flows and volcanoclastic deposits related to the explosive activity of the the Ellittico eruptive center, which dates back from 60,000 to 15,000 years ago. Although very young by geological standards, the soils from the Ellittico eruption are the oldest superficial strata in which one may plant on Etna. The reason is simple: millennia of lava flows have buried all older soils, leaving, in fact, only very small and rare parcels of Ellittico soils. On the northern slopes of Etna there are four or five Contrade that have terroir from the Ellittico. Three, however, have mixed soils, blending soil from Ellittico of igneous nature with alluvial soils of sedimentary nature due to the overflowing of the Alcantara river. Only two Contrade out of hundreds and hundreds are “pure” terroir Ellittico: Calderara and San Lorenzo.