Tasting a Calabretta slaps you with extremity. They're wildly complex and animated.

Catch a Calabretta in the zone and it amazes.

The wines deserve to be placed alongside other profoundly individual Italian wines like those of Valentini and Bea - producers who turn out deeply moving, soulful and utterly singular wines.

Sicily's Mount Etna is one of the most extreme terroirs on the planet. Often the soil is jet black with volcanic remains, the elevations are high with cool nights and warm days.

While Etna has seen a huge influx of money from outside the region and the country with plenty of cleaned up, modern winemaking, Calabretta's wines harken back to an old school traditionalism that we rarely glimpse these days.

Nerello Cappuccio is a secondary grape in Etna that's almost always blended with Nerello Mascalese, which dominates the region's plantings. It's extremely rare to see Nerello Cappuccio on its own.

Calabretta's Nerello Cappuccio really blew us away when we tasted it recently. It has a core of black, earthy and saline minerality along with complex floral notes and red fruits. There's also a pure drinkability factor to the wine that makes this one of our favorite of Calabretta's wines.

This is one of the wines that simply brims with personality. It may lack technical "correctness," but instead is one of the rare wines that possesses its own logic - a depth and soulfulness that's incredibly compelling.

To order, reply to offers@crushwineco.com or call the store at (212) 980-9463.

Joe Salamone

Wine Buyer
Crush Wine & Spirits