Planeta Winery

​We were taking a great risk, visiting Planeta Winery.  Planeta has several facilities in Sicily, but we chose to visit the one on the side of Mount Etna.  Mount Etna is an active volcano.  Below is a picture of Taormina, a famous Sicilian resort, taken from the neighboring town of Naxos.  The black rock behind the fence is volcanic, deposited there from Mount Etna in 1669.  Naxos is about 24 miles from Mount Etna, and were going to a winery on the side of the volcano!  Granted, the risk of being killed by a Mount Etna eruption was very small, but it does give me a chance to show some of the pictures I took….

​It is worth noting the Italian system for classifying wines before we discuss Sicilian wines.  The system they use is based on the French system of Appellations.  In Italy, the highest classification is DOCG, similar to the French AOC.  The classification goes to a group of wineries in a specific area – say Barolo – for wines that are made using methods agreed upon by the group, and getting government approval.  Italy actually goes a step further.  The government tastes the wines.  You get the G if your wines are good – basically the government guarantees the quality of the wine.  Only one wine in Sicily has DOCG status. 
The reason is that while they have been growing wine grapes in Sicily for thousands of years, wine making was not very common.  In fact, until recently, 97% of Sicilian grapes were shipped out of Sicily.  Only 3% were used to make wine, and that was primarily low-level table wine.  This is not an easy transition.  If you are growing grapes to make table wines you want high yields.  If you are growing grapes to make quality wines you want low yields to concentrate the flavors in the grapes.  Going from quantity to quality may require replacing the vines, a time-consuming and costly process.
Planeta was one of the leaders of the movement to produce quality wines in Sicily.  They began making wine in 1995, and now have five wineries in different areas of Sicily.  This is pretty much the same time frame as the wine industry development in Southern California.  One great difference is the accessibility of the wineries.  The winery we visited was on the north slope of Mount Etna, quite a drive from the nearest population center, up very narrow winding mountain roads, far less accessible than wineries in our area.

​They started the Etna facility in 2008, taking over a largely-abandoned old winery.  Vines were not in great shape, so they had to replant. By 2012 they had planted the red grape Nerello and the white grape Carricante.  They preserved the old structure, as shown below, along with a picture of the view from the winery:

We started out with a short tour and presentation, then tasting with cheese pairing and more food.

​We tasted wines made from both Carricante and a Nerello variation called Nerello Mascalese, where Mascalese refers to the region where the vineyards are located.  As noted in the picture below, we tasted two wines of each grape variety.  Both grapes were new to me, so it is hard to judge how representative they were.  I found the two whites to be quite nice, but the reds were just ok.  If you are interested, Planeta exports their wines to the United States and are carried in such wine shops as Total Wines & More.

Eventually, we had to leave and head to other venues.  But we got in one picture, with the Planeta server...