Growing Conditions
Rain and cool weather continued after spring into summer with August being the wettest month in the last 18 vintages… the complete opposite compared to 2017. Many of the higher vineyards have not produced high enough quality of grapes to make it into the single vineyard wines and there will be no Magma in 2018 either. Our crop thinning was done too late also as we were indecisive with the wet summer. Together with 2003, this is by far the worst vintage we had so far. But a great learning school where we applied all our skills and equipment for selecting and pulling the best out of this tragedy.
I decided to use sulphur for the first time on all the 2018 wines in order to protect the wines from disintegrating rapidly. An apparent radical choice, but after 18 vintages of experience, this was for me the right choice.
The red wines are very light in color, fragile as well as tight with little extraction and low alcohol. The Bianco 2018 is very good+; what a relief and joy!
- Vineyards: Calderara, Crasà and Picciolo
- Exposure: North
- Average age of vines: 30+ years
Winemaking
With the vintage 2015 I changed our technique to search for the purity and flavors of Etna which evolved in maintaining a short period of skin contact and aging our white wines for an extended period in the coldest part of our cellar before bottling.
- Vinification: Destemming and light crushing of the grapes
- Fermentation: skin maceration with only indigenous yeasts for approximately 3 days
- Fining: No
- Filtering: Before bottling with PP cartridges of 0,8 micron
- Sulphur: values can vary from 15 to 50 mg/l., added or not, depending on the quality of grapes and stability of the wine.
Aging
In neutral epoxy tanks from 1500 liters to 4500 liters for about 16 months
Food Pairing
The obtained elegance, purity and density makes this wine very suited to accompany a wide variety of dishes and cuisine, from fish to white meat.
