Graci, Contrada Arcuria, Etna Rosso 2019 - 75cl
This is the same great cru as Graci's 2016 — Contrada Arcuria, high on Etna's north-eastern slope — but caught younger and firmer. The 2019 is a vintage with more grip and drive, and it wears its youth openly: this is Nerello Mascalese with the volume up on structure rather than mellowed by time in bottle.
Alberto Graci farms Arcuria organically at around 600-700 metres near Passopisciaro, in Castiglione di Sicilia. Everything about the cellar work is designed to disappear — spontaneous ferments, a long spell on skins, then ageing in concrete and big neutral oak. Nerello here behaves less like a warm-climate Sicilian grape and more like something from a cold mountain, all red fruit and mineral tension.
Expect a translucent ruby and a nose of small red fruits, crushed rose and balsamic Mediterranean herbs, with graphite underneath. The palate is fuller than the 2016 and noticeably more tannic — a dense, fine-grained grip carried by bright acidity to a long, citrus-edged, saline close. Approachable now with air, but this has the frame to gain complexity for another eight to ten years. If you have the patience, cellar it; if not, decant hard.
How to Serve
Serve at 15-16°C. Decant a full hour — the young tannins need it. A wide Burgundy glass suits the aromatics best.
Where to Drink It
Bocca di Lupo near Piccadilly, for regional Italian cooking that knows Etna well. Sager+Wilde on Hackney Road for a relaxed pour. Trivet, whose sommeliers will happily talk you through the vintage.
Food Pairings
A rare-grilled lamb chop with rosemary meets its firm tannin head-on. For something lighter, pasta alla Norma — aubergine, tomato and ricotta salata — echoes the wine's own island roots.
