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sicily

Stop, look, Cornelissen

[bottles]Cornelissen 2007 “MunJebel 4” Bianco (Sicily) – Pine, melting cedar candle, orange rind, and coal. There’s a medium-toned brown hum to the wine, but a sharp declension on the finish; with a little more linger, this could be a star. As it is, it’s merely fascinating, but the fascination is brief. I somewhat preferred a 3 (from 2006) tasted earlier this year. (7/09)

Gulfi Annan

[vineyard]Gulfi 2007 Cerasuolo di Vittoria (Sicily) – A mix of red and darker fruit, shouldery and fairly powerful, yet with enough restraint to avoid being boisterous or overblown. There’s a dark core of soil and rock here, slightly lava-esque, but the concentration of the fruit that surrounds it doesn’t allow much penetration at present. Full and muscular, with aging potential. (6/09)

Frank Nobile

[label]Fià Nobile 2007 Cerasuolo di Vittoria (Sicily) – Spiderwebs of red fruit that come off as insistent, but are actually rather soft-hearted. Volcanic dust, as well? Yes, some (alongside more organic brown earth), and this is a wine with a fair measure of soil amidst the berries. Balanced and highly approachable. Yum. (6/09)

Carbonated

Pellegrino 2007 Passito di Pantelleria (Sicily) – Perfume and pine with a shot of sweet clementine nectar. Simple and tasty, with a little bit of suntan lotion. (6/09)

Stop, look, Cornelissen

[vineyard]Cornelissen “MunJebel 3” 2006 Sicilia Bianco (Sicily) – A blend of carricante, grecanico dorato, and coda di volpe, served blind. There’s absolutely no way to guess what it is, of course, other than that it’s yet another member of the “orange wine” set, and this time much closer to actual (cloudy) orange than most of its cohorts. As for the wine? Mixed citrus, perhaps leaning a bit towards blood orange, with a very citric acidic presence. There’s a miasma of lambic-like yeastiness, a thick dryness that would appear to be tannin (though I might be misattributing something), and then an interesting interplay of peach and pomegranate on the finish. Papaya too? Sure, why not? A fascinating wine. I like it a great deal. (4/09)

Cornelissen to my plea

Cornelissen “MunJebel 3” 2005 Sicilia Rosso (Sicily) – Nerello mascalese. Cloudy to the point of muddiness, and more the color of iron-rich dirt than falling anywhere in the usual range of red wine hues. Tannic and short. Very tactile, but this is far less interesting than the white of the same name. (4/09)

My kind of town, Siccagno is

Occhipinti 2006 “Siccagno” Nero d’Avola (Sicily) – Fecal. Crystalline black raspberry soda, with an earthy texture later on. It’s a “pretty” wine, despite the funk, and I like it a great deal, though I wouldn’t serve it to the brett-averse. (4/09)

Massachusetts milkshake

Occhipinti 2006 Il Frappato (Sicily) – Red and black raspberries, a touch of volatile acidity, and a nudge of brett. Very pointed and angular. A fun, sprightly wine with zing and zip (though watch those prickly biochemical issues), and one that slashes and hacks through food in a most enjoyable way. This is a very different wine than the one I tasted a year ago, and I don’t know whether to blame evolution or deviation. Or both. In this incarnation, however, an important caveat: it’s not really worth its tariff, which is significant. (2/09)

Etna, I’m glad I met ya

Benanti 1999 Etna Rosso Rovitello (Sicily) – Prominent tannin is just starting to integrate, but this is still a stridently-structured wine in the forepalate, with a good measure of the wine’s signature ash not exactly bringing the softness. A silky fireplace wine of red fruit in an old oak drawing room, warming and delicious, with fine presence and a texture that grows more appealing as the wine aerates. Though there is a limit: at the end of a few hours’ sipping, the “closed for business” shingle is once more hung on the nail, and the wine’s qualities retreat behind a forbidding pressure door of tannin once again. This could use a longer nap. (9/08)

Ramí Martin

[vineyard]COS 2007 “Ramí” (Sicily) – A blend of insolia and grecanico. An exotic nose of je ne sais quoi. Really, I have absolutely no idea what to call these aromas. They’re lovely, though. The palate is wet and clean, but not up to the promise of the nose, and with aeration (an hour or so) the wine gets a little bit ponderous. It does seem to need a bit more chill than the weight might otherwise indicate. (1/09)