Feudo Montoni’s Nero d’Avola Lagnusa and Vrucara: A
Definitive Tasting of Two Great Italian Reds

BY IAN D'AGATA | SEPTEMBER 12, 2017





































Feudo Montoni is one of Italy’s best
but still relatively little known estates. In fact, despite boasting a lineup
of great wines and having been around for some time, Feudo Montoni (the winery
is housed in a villa that dates back to 1469) does not enjoy the fame and
visibility of Sicily’s many larger wineries. I have no doubt that this will all
change soon enough, because there are few &nbsp;estates anywhere in Italy making more
compelling wines today.<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1505152650463-0-The+vineyards+at+Feudo+Montoni+copy.JPG"> 

The vineyards at Feudo Montoni 

Owner Fabio Sireci isn’t just
passionate and knowledgeable, he is also extremely talented. That skill is
attested to by a rare degree of proficiency with a number of different Sicilian
native varieties. Feudo Montoni’s Grillo, Insolia and Cataratto wines are also
amongst the best examples of their respective grape varieties. However, it is
with Nero d’Avola that Sireci attains his greatest results. Sireci’s two Nero
d’Avolas, Lagnusa and Vrucara, rank alongside Italy’s best reds. Each wine has a
unique personality: the former is a fresher, earlier-maturing wine, while the
latter is a more ageworthy, tactile and deeper Sicilian red. But as good as the
Nero d’Avola Lagnusa is, it is the Vrucara that is one of Italy’s most
noteworthy red wines.The Estate





















Feudo Montoni is located in the
Valledolmo viticultural zone of Sicily, roughly in the mid-east- section of the
island. The winery’s vineyards are not located far from those of Tasca
d’Almerita, one of Sicily’s oldest and most respected wine estates.The Sireci
family once sold its grapes to Tasca. In fact, the Nero d’Avola grapes now used
to make Feudo Montoni’s Vrucara bottling were long an important component in
Tasca’s famous Rosso del Conte Nero d’Avola.

<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1505152667363-1-80-100+year+old+bush+vines+of+Nero+d%27Avola+at+Feudo+Montoni+copy.JPG"> 80-100 year old bush vines of Nero d'Avola at Feudo
Montoni

















Feudo Montoni was founded in the
1800s when Rosario Sireci, the grandfather of current owner Fabio Sireci,
bought the winery and the vineyards, driven by a conviction that the area
harbored unique old vines that could make wines that were different (and in his
mind, better) from those he had tasted made with grapes grown elsewhere. Over
the decades that followed, Rosario’s sons Elio and Fabio have relentlessly performed
massale selections propagating the very old red and white local biotypes of
native Sicilian wine grapes that grew on their property. Therein lies part of
the secret of Feudo Montoni’s success today. In fact, over the years, many of
the island’s other winemakers and producers have come knocking on Sireci’s door
asking for cuttings to plant at their own estates.Besides making true to type,
varietally accurate wines, I find another strength of Feudo Montoni is their ability
to make Nero d’Avolas that clearly speak of specific Sicilian terroirs. In Italy, only Gulfi makes
Nero d’Avolas that are of a similarly high quality level and that are as
varietally accurate as those of Feudo Montoni. However, Gulfi’s wines smell and
taste completely different from those made by Fabio Sireci. The main reason for
this is that while Nero d’Avola grows practically everywhere in Sicily, it
gives wildly different results depending on where it is planted. Just like,
say, Nebbiolo, Pinot Noir and Riesling, Nero d’Avola is remarkably adept at
translating even minute terroir
differences into the glass. In fact, given relatively similar viticultural and
winemaking techniques, Nero d’Avolas made, for example, in the area around
Menfi show completely different aroma and flavor profiles from those made near
Noto (and even more so from those of nearby Pachino), or the Nero d’Avolas made
near Palermo. Just like the Nebbiolos of Serralunga are recognizably different
from those of La Morra, Nero d’Avola too gives altogether different wines,
depending on the terroir’s
characteristics. During the twentieth century, due to a combination of
questionable winemaking practices and poor viticultural decisions, such differences
were often hard to discern, but the cleaner, purer wines of the 21st century
are now bringing such diversities out into the open. The Feudo Montoni wines showcase
the more refined, perfumed nature of Nero d’Avola made from old vines and high
altitude viticulture. Sireci’s vineyards lie at 500-600 meters above sea level
and the aromas and flavors of his Nero d’Avolas are far removed from the much
riper, tomato and anchovy-laced Nero d’Avolas made from grapes grown in, for
example, lower-lying seaside vineyards.The Nero d’Avola Lagnusa























The Nero d’Avola Lagnusa is a single
vineyard wine. Lagnusa in Sicilian
dialect means “lazy”, referring to lazy or poorly productive soils, as the
Lagnusa vineyard is always characterized by low yields. The vineyard is planted
at 600 meters above sea level and has a mainly eastern exposure. It is made up
of two plots of 30 year-old vines, estate massale selections (from the older
Vrucara single vineyard) and planted on dark clay-sandy soils on 140 Ruggeri
rootstock. This wine was called simply Nero d’Avola from 2000 up until the 2009
vintage. In 2010 the name Vigna Lagnusa was added. Since the 2012 vintage, the
wine is simply called Nero d’Avola Lagnusa. 

<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1505152695648-2.5-Lagnusa+bottles+copy.JPG"> 

The must spends roughly 15 days on
the skins, with fermentation temperatures that rarely reach 30°C (for the most
part temperatures range between 26-28°C). Sireci has been decreasing use of oak
over the years, so while the wine has always been aged mainly in cement (up to
twenty months), it once also spent another eight months in used barriques and tonneaux. Gradually, the oak aging has been reduced to four months (and
Sireci’s goal is to stop using it altogether). Lagnusa is a bright, fruity Nero
d’Avola that always exhibits the variety’s perfumed, bright violet quality,
with ripe but fresh, vibrant black and red fruit aromas and flavors complicated
by minty herbs and spices. Lagnusa is all about pure and precise Nero d’Avola
fruit, with no camouflaging oak or vanilla nuances at all. And though there is
a common thread identifiable in all the Lagnusa vintages, the wine strikes me
as changing noticeably with the 2013 vintage, most likely because it is the
year in which only whole clusters, natural indigenous yeasts and less oak were
used for the first time.The Nero d’Avola Vrucara





















Feudo Montoni’s greatest wine is the
Nero d’Avola Vrucara, a single vineyard wine made from roughly 80-100 year-old
vines that grow at 500 meters above sea level. Most of the vines are of
pre-phylloxera origin, and are therefore ungrafted. The vineyard’s name derives
from the Sicilian word vruca, a local
herb that grows in the vineyards and exudes aromas of menthol and incense. The
Vrucara vineyard is especially beautiful, a field of gnarly, very thick trunked
and low-lying bush vines hugging the dark mainly clay soils (with a little loam
and sand). Vinification is, like with the Lagnusa, very traditional. The must
is kept 25 days on the skins with temperatures allowed to creep up to as high
as 32°C. Alcoholic fermentation and malolactic transformation are carried out
in cement vats. <img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1505152713641-2-Lineup+of+Vrucara+bottles+in+vertical+tasting+copy.JPG"> 

The wine ages anywhere from 45 to 48
months in cement, plus another 6 months in barriques
and tonneaux (up to 10% of which are
new every year). The first vintage was 1998. Back then the wine was called “Selezione
Speciale Vrucara”, and it remained so until the 2005 vintage when the current
name was first used (for a reason that Sireci himself cannot explain, the 2003 vintage
was labeled only “Vrucara”). At its best, Vrucara is a benchmark Nero d’Avola,
eschewing the vanilla notes of more modern interpretations of Nero d’Avolas,
while offering multilayered violet, blueberry, macerated red cherries in
alcohol, tar and spicy aromas and flavors, with a characteristic hint of
eucalyptus and incense.



















The following wines were sourced directly
at the winery and tasted in Sicily in September 2016.<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1505152738263-3-Fabio+Sireci+with+his+girlfriend+Melissa+Muller.JPG"> 

Fabio Sireci with his girlfriend Melissa Muller

<a target="_blank" href="http://vinous.com/wines?sort%5Bdirection%5D=asc&amp;sort%5Bname%5D=id&amp;wine_filter%5Barticle_id%5D=1714&amp;wine_filter%5Bproducer_id%5D=1122&amp;producer=true">See All the Wines from Youngest to Oldest</a>

You Might Also Enjoy

<a target="_blank" href="http://vinous.com/articles/donnafugata-s-mille-e-una-notte-1995-2011-dec-2016">Donnafugata's
Mille e Una Notte: 1995-2011</a>, Ian D’Agata, December 2016

<a target="_blank" href="http://vinous.com/articles/sicily-moving-fast-while-slowly-rediscovering-its-past-dec-2016">Sicily:
Moving Fast While Slowly Rediscovering its Past</a>, Ian D’Agata, December 2016

<a target="_blank" href="http://vinous.com/articles/elena-fucci-aglianico-del-vulture-titolo-2000-2014-dec-2016">Elena
Fucci Aglianico del Vulture Titolo: 2000-2014</a>, Ian D'Agata, December 2016 

<a target="_blank" href="http://vinous.com/articles/benito-ferrara-greco-di-tufo-vigna-cicogna-2008-2015">Benito
Ferrara Greco di Tufo Vigna Cicogna: 2008-2015</a>, Ian D'Agata, November 2016

<a target="_blank" href="http://vinous.com/articles/argiolas-turriga-looking-back-at-an-italian-icon-2012-1988-aug-2016">Argiolas
Turriga – Looking Back at an Italian Icon:&nbsp;
2012-1988</a>, Ian D'Agata, August 2016

<a target="_blank" href="http://www.vinous.com/articles/vertical-tasting-of-mastroberardino-s-taurasi-riserva-may-2014">Vertical
Tasting of Mastroberardino's Taurasi Riserva</a>, Ian D'Agata, May 2014

<a target="_blank" href="http://vinous.com/articles/tasca-d-almerita-rosso-del-conte-1979-2006-mar-2010">Tasca
d’Almerita Rosso del Conte: 1979-2006</a>, Antonio Galloni, March 2010

Content

Engage

Vinous

Social