The third visit of our April wine tour of Italy took us to Sicily where we dropped in on Cusumano’s winery in Palermo and had a tour of the company’s new vineyards on the slopes of Mt. Etna. The tasting introduced us to some fascinating new wines, including an extremely promising white wine, as well as some of Palermo’s best “street” food. The vineyard visit gave us some amazing views on Etna.
Cusumano is a Palermo based company producing a variety of white and red wines, ranging from sparkling wine to dessert wine, made from grapes grown on more than 500 ha throughout Sicily. As the winemaking was started by the family’s current generation of two brothers, Cusumano’s wineries are more modern in look as are its wine labels. The company takes great interest in the look of their wine and has some beautiful glass caps for some of their bottles instead of using screw tops. You definitely get the sense that they are meticulous in the look and feel as well as the taste their wines.
Cusumano’s best known wine is probably its red blend (nero d’avola, merlot and cabernet sauvignon grapes) – Noa – in which some of its past vintages have scored highly by reviewers such as Robert Parker and James Suckling. Besides Noa, we also tasted its sparkling white, two of its other red blends – the Sagana and Benuara, its single grape wines – a Nero d’Avola and a Merlot, a white (Alta Mora Bianco) from its new vineyard on Mt. Etna, and a Moscato.
The Mt. Etna wines are called Alta Mora and it’s the white wine that is quite exceptional in value, in my view. It’s made primarily from a local grape – Carricante – and because of the volcanic slopes on Mt. Etna, the wine has a nice minerality. My husband thinks it’s “like a Montrachet”. In the years to come, as production on Mt. Etna matures, it will be interesting to see how the wines evolve from here. At the moment, it’s definitely said to be one of the most promising new wine producing areas. So it was good that we’d have the chance to visit Cusumano’s new activities there.
We tasted the wines alongside some amazing food catered in by Cusumano. This was like a “best of” Sicilian street food. Once again, the food is so much better on home ground – even the arancini seemed different.
I’m not a dessert person but I have to make mention of the Sfince di San Giuseppe, which is a Palermo dessert. It’s essentially a doughnut type bread filled with ricotta, pistachios, orange rind, and some chocolate. So good with our moscato! Another reason to go back to Palermo.
After an enjoyable evening, we left for Cusumano’s Mt. Etna vineyards the following morning. Cusumano’s Alta Mora wine are so called because the grapes are planted at around 4,000 ft. altitude in the dark volcanic soil of Mt. Etna. The brothers are gradually adding more acreage to their production on the volcano and have a brand new winery there as well.
While our first stop was the newest vineyard, we also visited one of Cusumano’s other vineyards where the vines are closer to reaching production maturity. I got some good photo ops from the hill behind this vineyard.
As by law Mt. Etna wines can only be so classified if they are produced in the area, Cusumano has built a new winery nearby. The exterior of the winery is still under construction but as much of the plant is underground, it is already in operation. We weren’t expecting much when we first saw the grounds and it was all very James Bond-like when we were led to a nondescript metal door. Going down the stairs unveiled, however, a most modern wine making facility full of gleaming stainless steel.
All in, this was a fascinating visit tied in with some great vineyard views. It’s also interesting to know that Mt. Etna is an active volcano so much of what we visited could be wiped on in a single eruption. Fingers crossed that that does not happen as the Alta Mora Bianco is setting up to be a great white wine.
Cusumano website: http://cusumano.it