Alta Mora - Etna Bianco

…the whites of Sicily, particularly those grown in the foothills of Mount Etna, have been earning attention as among the most distinctive and unusual white wines in Italy, if not the world ERIC ASIMOV, www.newyorktimes.com

I think if there’s anything I love more than Etna Rosso it might be really good Etna Bianco. It’s harder to find, the red has so captured the imagination of the drinking world but, when you get a good one, they can stamp an indelible memory into your palate, one that captures all the uniqueness of this remarkable terroir. I tasted one the other day I’d never heard of – Alta Mora – and it’s a wow wine, a bone fide terroir time capsule and roadmap in every moment in the wafting aromatic and lingering mouthful. You should buy it.

I know I owe you more.

On closer inspection, the producer are the Cusamano brothers and Alta Mora is a passion project from this family who have been a leading producer in other parts of Sicily for many years. After decades of searching, in 2013 they finally had the ability to purchase some small parcels across five contrade (communes) mostly at high altitudes ranging from 500 to 1200 metres above sea level.

Having this diversity of terroirs is more important on Etna than just about anywhere else in the world. Etna is a patchwork, a wonderfully fragmented disjointed place. Holdings are generally tiny and each zone offers up wildly diverse soils-type according to the lava flows that defined them 50, 100, 1000 years ago. The differences these different sites gives is truly remarkable.

Alta Mora has the ability to make wine across several – be they the black volcanic sands or petrified rocky lava fields – that dot their holdings in Castiglione di Sicilia, Contrada Verzella; Contrada Pietramarina; Linguaglossa, and Contrada Arrigo. It gives them the ability to pick and choose and blend to make the best expression.

OK, but what about this wine. Like I said at the opening, this is one of the best examples I’ve seen in a very long time. It’s 100% Carricante and that’s important to me; I reckon the best examples are usually 80-100% of this variety. It copes with the high altitude and cooler weather without losing its ability to transmit the characteristic of the ground from whence it comes.

On that point, here’s the other thing that makes Etna Bianco so impressive and different. It reminds me of riesling or Chablis (chardonnay) in that it has this ability to transmit their unique terroirs like few other varieties. They are windows on the soul of the vineyard if you like.

You get all of that in spades from this 2021. Racy citrus flavours are edged with a little grilled nuts, saline minerality and puff of singed earth (Larner calls it volcanic ash.. same thing I spose). There’s extra time on lees which means it’s picked up some pithy texture and width along the way which elevates the natural savouriness of the wine. It’s a gorgeous and a perfect example of the breed.

This all brings me back to the point I made at the beginning, BUY IT. 

Cheers

Michael