Passorosso Etna Rosso D.O.C. - Passopisciaro Franchetti

Andrea Franchetti arrived on Mt. Etna in 2000 and helped to initiate the renaissance of viticulture on the mountain and an international discovery of the region as a quality wine region. The Passopisciaro winery makes eight different wines from vines growing in different contrade-vineyards at Etna. The Etna volcano gives relatively frequent lava spills. While these spills devastate the landscape, each lava flow leaves a unique mineral profile, giving rise to the notion of various terroirs, called contrade – which form the basis for the very different wines produced.. At Passopisciaro, they use the strengths of the terroir on Etna to produce wines of remarkable complexity and individual personality.

The Passorosso is made from a blend of ancient grapes of Nerello Mascalese from different vineyards located at different altitudes on the northern slope of Etna. In general, the highest districts lie on more gravelly soils to coarser grain, while the lower ones on the finer and deeper soils composed of older lava flows, now oxidized and reduced to lava dust. This wine concentrates the characteristics of different terroirs in a single bottle. The grapes for this red wine was manually harvested and carefully sorted. The wine had a traditional fermentation for 15 days in steel vats and aged for 18 months cement vats and large oak barrels.