Highly aromatic, burnished amber maceration of Catarratto. A wine that, to us, is so typical of this part of Sicily, and harks back to the style of the ancient Marsala. Sea-salted apricot with a heady waft of wild herbs and flowers float out of the glass preceding grippy, mouth-coating tannins and a resinous pine cone quality, inflected with medicinal eucalyptus. Wearing the heat of a particularly hot vintage very well, there is a creamy richness at play, balancing with the pithy citrus and retaining some super-long acid in the finish.
The grapes were de-stemmed and then saw a long maceration of 19 days before being pressed into steel tanks to rest for seven months, after which the wine was bottled with no additions. This same base wine is used for Fabio's 'Aggiara' cuvée, which following the maceration takes a different path by being aged in amphora. The two are fascinating to taste alongside one another.
From a long-running family of vignaiolo, Fabio Ferracane has lived in Marsala on Sicily’s west coast his whole life. From his father he inherited three hectares, to which he has added a couple more of his own - all of them enjoy being drenched in sun pretty much year-round and are both remote and secluded. We’ve long been seduced by the distinctive wines of this diverse Italian island, so when we met with Fabio we were excited to find he was following the same path as some of the producers of the region we hold in the highest regard, creating wines that express their environment by channelling the sun and the sea.
His parcels of vines are split across two locations; those planted over sandy soils a few steps away from the ocean, looking out over the salt pans to the Stagnone Islands, and those a little further inland, sat in a valley over calcareous clay, amongst a patchwork of rolling hills that are close enough to still feel the effects of the maritime breeze. For the most part he grows the Sicilian workhorse grape, Catarratto, but produces wines that are anything but middling or conventional.
Embracing all manner of ancient techniques, ones which Fabio explains predate the export market for sweet Marsala that exploded in the 1800s, they look back in time to create something that ironically, right now, feels incredibly contemporary. Hazy sparkling wines from tart, early-harvest grapes are fermented in their bottles with no disgorgement. White grapes are given long macerations on their skins and aged in amphorae to create musky, exotic amber wines. There is simple, thirst-quenching rosato, and luscious late-harvest wines, made in the passito style.
It follows that the vineyard work harks back to a time long before chemical farming too - all the plants are tended to organically, with grass and flowers allowed to grow along the rows, punctuated by the occasional ploughing. In the cellar Fabio works with a light hand and the range of wines we have selected to import all have no filtration or sulphur input whatsoever. Calling to mind the landscape of this dusty, remote part of Sicily in both their colour and aromas of wild herbs, stone fruits and flowers, their defining trait is the influence of the ocean and its salty breeze, which finds itself embedded in the character of these charming, evocative wines.
