2013 Rosso Franchetti

The brainchild of Andrea Franchetti, the talent behind the Tenuta di Trinoro in Tuscany, Passopisciaro is one of Etna’s leading lights. Franchetti deserves credit for having shone the light, along with Benanti, on this unique, world-class wine production zone. He owns six vineyards, each in a specific Etna contrada, with very old vines planted between 550 and 1,000 meters above sea level. However, as the majority of the vineyards are located immediately outside of the Etna production zone, Passopisciaro’s wines are now labeled with only the initial of each contrada and as Terre Siciliane rather than Etna.

Another change here has been the modification of the Passopisciaro wine’s name: as that is also the name of the town where the estate is located, it cannot be used to name a wine, and thus beginning with the 2013 vintage Passopisciaro's wine will be named Passorosso. All these nomenclature issues aside, the wines from Passopisciaro remain among the very best of Etna, and in the end that’s what matters to wine lovers everywhere. If I have one quibble with this estate, it's stems from Franchetti's constant desire to experiment: I would not have planted Petit Verdot or Cesanese d'Affile on Etna. This is not entirely his fault, of course, as Italian legislators who lacked vision also allowed this to happen.