From afar it’s easy to think of Mt. Etna as a relatively simple wine region: it’s a single mountain with a singular origin—a cone with a hole in the top, right?

But in fact Etna... Read More

From afar it’s easy to think of Mt. Etna as a relatively simple wine region: it’s a single mountain with a singular origin—a cone with a hole in the top, right?

But in fact Etna is very complicated, with craters of hugely varying ages, expositions and soil types all over the volcano. Benanti’s famous Serra della Contessa old-vine plot, for instance, is in one of these southeast sweet spots.

And just down the road you can find the magical vineyards of Biondi, a handful of disparate plots totaling 6ha and about 21000 bottles a year, farmed by Ciro Biondi and his wife, Stephanie.

Ciro’s family have been making wine since the 1700s and bottling under their own name since the early 1900s, decades ahead of the rest of the area. But there was an interruption, ending when Ciro and Stephanie started their second career, relaunching the winery in 1999. Salvo Foti helped advise the couple on rebuilding terraces and replanting vines, and they also consulted with Cristiano Garella on the winemaking.

What they have achieved in the last two decades is amazing. The people and the vineyards here are both warm, unaffected, and natural. Seemingly unconcerned with fashions in wine or business, they do everything by feel in delightful lo-fi ease. The wines are elegant, specific missives detailing the sandy volcanic soils and sunny, mostly east-facing slopes. The vines (Carricante, Minella, Malvasia, Moscatello, Catarratto for whites; Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio for reds) vary in age, some 60-70 years and others replanted starting in 1999.