“Benanti must be part of any conversation about wineries that put Etna on the map” says Eric Guido at Vinous.
When Giuseppe Benanti founded the estate in 1988, only four wineries operated on the volcano and nearly all production was destined for bulk blending. The family committed from the outset to indigenous varieties and rigorous terroir investigation. Giuseppe enlisted a young Salvo Foti as winemaker and sought counsel from academics in Burgundy and Piedmont, conducting more than 150 micro-vinifications in the early years to understand Etna’s clonal diversity and potential. Benanti remains the only estate with vineyards on all four slopes of the Etna DOC. Today the winery is run by Giuseppe’s twin sons, Antonio and Salvino, producing roughly 250,000 bottles annually from 28 hectares of organically farmed vines.
Rovittello Particella No. 341 was introduced with the 2015 vintage, drawing exclusively from a small parcel of pre-phylloxera, ungrafted vines within Contrada Dafara Galluzzo on Etna’s northern slope. The vines are head-trained alberello, over a century old, planted at 750 meters on steep, sandy volcanic soil rich in minerals and pumice. The blend is approximately 90% nerello mascalese and 10% nerello cappuccio, co-planted in the same vineyard. The total production cycle spans sixty months: fermentation in stainless steel with long maceration using the estate’s own indigenous yeasts, followed by roughly 24 months in large French oak casks, then further aging in stainless steel and bottle.
This is nerello mascalese at its most transparent. Pale ruby with garnet tinges, ethereal and fine-boned. Dried rose petal, wild berry, bay leaf, and a deeply mineral, savory core shaped by the volcanic soil and the extraordinary age of the vines.
