Last week, I joined my friend (and Opening a Bottle subscriber) Rob Clark for a podcast on the wines of Etna. We covered a lot of ground in this episode, in part because Etna covers a lot of Sicily, but also because its fleet of red and white wines are so utterly fascinating.
Together, we tasted the Etna Bianco and Etna Rosso from standout producer, Benanti. A time code of the topics we discussed is listed below.
- Location and Geography of Etna – 3:10
- Volcanism – 7:45
- Brief History & Trajectory of Etna DOC – 19:19
- Terroir & Why Etna Is So Special – 27:50
- How That Is Expressed in Etna Bianco – 30:53
- Etna Bianco Aging – 40:00
- How That Is Expressed in Etna Rosso – 42:35
- Other Etna Wines (Rosato, Spumante) – 48:30
- Benanti winery – 47:55
- The Contrada System – 50:00
- How the Region Compares to Other Big Name Regions in Italy – 50:55
- Key Producers – 55:20
- Traveling to Sicily – 58:22