Rosario Pappalardo, Val Cerasa, Etna, Sicily
Fake and true stories about Etna wines according to Rosario Pappalardo
The vineyard is around 20 hectares
There's and old and new part
The interesting thing to note is that the new part was planted wildly with the mass selection from the old vineyard
Here we left all the terraces because I think they're beautiful and particular.
It is fundamental to respect tradition because everything has been done by hand over the centuries,
and it would be a shame to ruin that.
I always say that we are the temporary owners.
This vineyard was here long before us and we hope it will be here long after as well.
The idea is to leave it in an even better condition than we found it.
There is the house where we live which at 700m above the sea level and here we are at 900m.
Say you order 1000 plants of Nerello Mascalese from a nursery, and you plant them.
Of course if it a good nursery.
On the other hand, if you plant rootstock, let say American rootstock
it's a bit like a machine....
With phylloxera which ate the roots of the European vine
after you had to plant on the American rootstock which the phylloxera couldn't destroy,
then you grafted the same plant that was there before.
So when I go to the nursery and buy a Nerello Mascalese plant made with 2 parts:
one native rootstock and one American rootstock.
I can buy only the native one
I put it
and after a year you can graft it
it's obviously more costly and risky
but it preserves the type of vines you have here
For example, this old vineyard isn't all Nerello Mascalese. It will be 60% with 10% Cappuccio
but there are others nearly extinct like Minella rossa, Minella bianca, 3-4 plants like Alicante, Grenache
that grow in big numbers in the area towards Randazzo, because the more north you go, the more difficult it is for Nerello Mascalese to mature.
So there is a need, according to an idea that the winemakers had in the old times, to put in another type of grape.
The old vines here are from centuries of evolution with the help of wine makers
who replaced the vines with new better ones
which was necessary to make a better wine, according to them.
Obviously the stronger and more resilient plants survived.
While all the old varieties are now practically exctinct.
There are two classic types of grafting - cleft and bud grafting.
The cleft graft you do in spring, take the vine, cut it to make the slit and insert the vine that you want:
Nerello Mascalese.
Then you tighten it with a string or sometimes tape, that decomposes later by itself.
Then, in summer, if all goes well with the graft, you have your Nerello Mascalese.
If in another time of the year, like autumn, no that's too late, in summer, if you do budded grafts
Take the buds from the vine that would become let's say mother,
and shave the buds off the budwood.
Place the bud on the rootstock that you are grafting.
Sometimes it works, and sometimes it does not,
but the resulting vine will always have the fruit which half one half another.
So there is a lot more work.
If you do bud grafting and you don't succeed, the plant lives.
If you do a cleft graft, and something goes wrong, the plant dies.
The terrain is sandy and mineral, so it's quite porous.
In fact, when you plant the vine, the most important step during the first years is to take care of the plant, so it develops deep roots,
so they manage to reach a humid microclimate.
After WW2 we restructured it here.
Old stones and wood were taken away and were substituted with a modern press machine.
The system stays the same. The grapes are brought here from this door from the outside.
Then the grapes were crushed with feet.
Depending on the vintage, if necessary, we used only the central vat, or also the side vats
when different types of wines were made.
Normally the maceration on the skins lasted 2-3 days.
It's clear that as there's open air, before fermentation finishes, you need to close it.
After 2 or 3 days depending on what kind of wine you want to make, you open the taps here
and fill up these tanks.
You begin to weigh the wine, and then you transfer it in oak barrels here in the special room nearby.
Normally every vineyard has its own little cellar.
The classic individualism of Sicily, in particular of Etna,
makes it impossible to think that one will go make the wine at someone else's place
I have my own micro vineyard and no one can know what I do in my cellar.
more information and bookings:
rimessaroscioli.com
roscioli.com
FOLLOW US / SEGUICI
Like us on Facebook -
Follow us on Instagram -
Learn about our Wine Club -