I Vini di Luca
This vineyard speaks. It tells the story of a family and all the work devoted to attaining the highest quality possible. This is where you can see all my father's experiments.
Luca Zumbo is deeply grateful to his father Salvatore for the tenacity and passion with which he taught him to work their vineyards, located in Contrada Crasà on the northern slope of Etna, in full compliance with DOC regulations.
Like any island, Sicily is a world unto itself. Attempting to tap into its proud, maternal soul in a single day is an impossible feat: a few brief hours merely offer the illusion of a fleeting glimpse, just enough time to fall wildly in love with this sun-bleached land only to have to promptly bid it farewell, your heart still pounding.
The best way to try to understand it is through the words of its inhabitants and those off-the-beaten track locations, where small family-run restaurants are richly redolent with the scent of homely hospitality, even before their delicacies arrive to bedeck your table.
The reasons I am landing in Catania are twofold: Luca Zumbo and his incredible Etna Rosso Virgola.
Virgola Rosso is the iconic label of Vini di Luca. Try it now along with Virgola Bianco, the winery's other premium bottle.
Luca wouldn't take no for an answer: I'll pick you up at the airport! In fact, as soon as I step out through the Arrivals gates, there he is: standing before me and smiling broadly as he waves to attract my attention.
It doesn’t feel like a first meeting with a wine producer, but more like catching up with an old friend whom I haven't seen in a while.
Leaving Catania behind us, we set off in the direction of Taormina. Passing Acireale, we smile fondly at the Ionian Sea twinkling down below us, offering us a foretaste of a summer that has yet to come. On every side, agave stems protrude from rustic stone walls like the blackened masts of ghostly galleons. Then come small villages of houses, with wisteria vines clambering up over walls and gates before exploding into a profusion of dangling blossoms of the very palest lilac.
We have only covered a few kilometres, before I realise that the 31-year-old seated beside me is a bewitching storyteller, madly in love with his island, its stories, myths and legends.
He speaks softly of this land of his birth which, thanks to his father's perseverance, is giving him the opportunity to indulge his love of wine.
My grandfather was a tenant farmer, but after the war he decided to buy the land and split it between his three sons. - he tells us - My father is the only one who held onto the property and it is thanks to his tenacity that I am able to work this 0.3 hectare plot on the northern slope of Etna, in Contrada Crasà.
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Through the windscreen, Sicily continues to unfold before my eyes and I am utterly captivated and enchanted by what I see. As if reading my mind, Luca parks on the side of the road to show me, from on high, the wonder that is Taormina. Nothing new for those who make this land their home, but for anyone observing it for the first time, it is an absolutely breath taking sight.
Living on Etna is like living on an island within an island. - Luca tells me as we make the turn towards Piedimonte Etneo - We are mountain folk, yet we have the sea 30 minutes from home. We are special, lucky people.
The roads leading up to the vineyard wind like capillaries of a circulatory system along the flanks of the immense living being that looms up before us: Mount Etna. When we stop in front of the entrance gate to his estate, the smile on Luca's face reveals a hint of pride and happiness. This is his family's land.
We are 650 metres above sea level right in the middle of the DOC area. Luca explains that the area designated as DOC is a horseshoe shaped strip of land, partially encircling Mount Etna and comprising the zone from 400 to 800 metres above sea level.
My boots slipping here and there on fragments of rough, volcanic rock, I move reverently between the hundred-year-old rows of Nerello Mascalese vines surrounding us. This vineyard speaks. - Luca tells me - It tells the story of a family and of work that is dedicated to attaining the highest quality possible. Here, you can see all my father's experiments.
No sooner has Luca said his name, then Salvatore Zumbo suddenly pulls up in the vineyard aboard his Fiat Panda. Somewhere in his seventies, with a tanned, almost biblical, appearance, he has shy deep-set eyes.
His handshake is as firm as the land he works, while his accent is a window onto an age-old, authentic Italy.
He explains that Etna, despite the masculine appellation (mount), is by rights a mountain and therefore warrants the feminine: ‘Mountain is her REAL due!’
For the locals, the mountain and its volcano are personified, becoming both friend and mother, but also sincere and (oft times) cruel confidante. A creature capable of giving life, as well as severely punishing its children.
In these parts, all conversations revolve around the mountain. Luca tells us.
Working entirely organically, Luca and his father “extracted” 700 bottles of Virgola Rosso from this soil in its first year of production, 2021. Refined for 4 months in steel vats, followed by 10 months in oak barrels and a minimum of 6 months in the bottle, I can't wait to taste it.
We climb into the car and drive a couple of kilometres to find the second plot. We are in Contrada Zottorinoto and we are still in the DOC area. This plot, purchased and restored in 2018, is the cradle of Virgola Bianco, a pure Carricante. Compared to the first vineyard, here the rows are perfectly aligned following a quincunx* grid. My son and I did this! - shouts Mr Zumbo as he proudly gets out of the car.
This perfectly plotted distance of 1.20 metres between each vine allows for greater ventilation and prevents the plants from being overshadowed. Here too, only 800 bottles were produced for a white wine that tastes of both land and sea.
There is little point in asking Luca to taste the wines directly in the vineyard. Our host has already organised a “typical light lunch”, as he puts it, at an inn near Castiglione di Sicilia: one of the most beautiful villages in all Italy.
Aubergines, sausages, donkey mortadella, caponata, pasta alla norma, pasta with sardines, you name it: this is Sicily's famous hospitality. The mood is convivial and the atmosphere is homely as we sit around a table, laden with dishes from end to end, while Luca pours me his two wines. Both of which leave me absolutely speechless.
Virgola Bianco has fine acidic underpinning and an endless zest. It does not undergo malolactic fermentation; hence it is very fresh and extremely minerally. Refined solely in steel vats for 5 months on fine lees, it receives a thrice-weekly batonnage. It reflects its volcanic terroir displaying notes of citrus, green apple peel and hints of saline. A very easy wine to drink on sunny Sicilian days.
Virgola Rosso. This is my Etna. - Luca tells me. A slight powderiness on the palate immediately recalls the soil from which it originates, at once elegant, balanced and persistent. The grapes are very recognisable, with a refinement that almost recalls French wines. It has a complex and well-rounded aromatic profile, with notes of ripe red fruit, spices and mineralitỳ. I am truly impressed. If this is his first vintage, I wonder what Luca's future holds.
As the sun slowly sets, the sky changes colour with the drifting clouds and we arrive in Castiglione di Sicilia for a granita, which I am really looking forward to savouring. Sitting on the steps of a bar, I gaze around me and thank Luca for allowing me to experience an Italy so far removed from our daily lives. A man with rough, curly hair walks by, stoically leaning forward as if walking into an imaginary headwind.
I ask Luca why his wines are called Virgola. Smiling, he tells me: I have a degree in Physics. So I study nature in its most elementary form. Making wine, on the other hand, leads me to study it in its most primordial and emotional form. Although they are two different approaches, they are not so far apart but only separated by a comma, so the comma is not a point, in the sense of a point of arrival, but it can be seen as a beginning. A new beginning.
I tell myself that if this is the beginning, who knows what the future may hold.
Through an open window I catch a glimpse of a woman dancing to the strains of an unfamiliar song. With her raven hair moving about her like the foliage of a tree, I savour my granita. I feel like I am reliving images from another era and I know that, even if I have to leave in a few hours’ time, there will always be a place waiting for me: like a homecoming.
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