Tenuta delle Terre Nere Etna Rosso Calderara Sottana Grand Cru 2020

The soils of Calderara Sottana are easily recognized, even at a glance. Of all the AOC Etna crus, they are definitely the stoniest. So much so that in the exemplary areas you can’t see the ground from the boulders that are there. Big as a fist, light, a mixture of black pumice and basalt.
The word itself, Calderara, is reminiscent of warmth, probably born of the warmth that black stones retain and transmit back to the earth on cold nights.
The terroir of Contrada Calderara originated from lava flows and volcano-clastic deposits related to the effusive and explosive activity of the Ellittico eruptive center , approximately between 60,000 and 15,000 years ago. Although very young in geological terms, the soil of the Elliptic is the oldest surface layer where planting is possible. The reason is simple: millennia of lava flows have buried The oldest soils, leaving, in fact, only small and rare portions of the Ellithic soil. On the northern slope of Etna there are five or six Contrade that have “elliptical terroir.” Three soils, however, are spurious in that the igneous nature of the Ellittico was mixed with alluvial soils of sedimentary nature due to the overflow of the Alcantara River. On the northern slope of Etna only three Contrade out of hundreds and hundreds are “pure” Elliptic terroir: Bocca d’Orzo, Calderara and San Lorenzo.
The altitude varies from 600 to 700 meters. Harvesting takes place in the second decade of October. Locally Calderara and its wines enjoy an extraordinary reputation. Calderara Sottana comes from very old vineyards, 50 to 100 years old. Of all the crus it is perhaps the most comprehensive: just as a wide-angle lens encompasses the widest panorama, so Calderara seems to contain and exhibit the widest spectrum of flavors, aromas, nuances. Distinctly autumnal, spicy, it is aromatic and austere at the same time. It gives a wonderful feeling of fullness on the palate, yet ineffably mild.
Don Peppino, whose devotion to Calderara led him to cultivate its vineyards for 70 years, well described Calderara’s wines: “creamy,” he called them. And he was right. Noble poultry, white meat ragout, arista, suckling pig, rabbit in white wine, roast lamb.