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Nero d'Avola Sicilia

Nero d’Avola is a woman

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Nero d’Avola is one of the traditional red wine grapes of Sicily, and is rapidly becoming quite a popular variety all over the world.

For its ability to resist draught and to survive hot climates, Nero d’Avola shows amazing adaptation to very different type of soils, thus it is deeply influenced by the various Sicilian terroirs where it is cultivated.

The wines produced with Nero d’Avola grapes are generally deeply colored and intense, but their structure may vary from a very powerful, high-alcoholic and thick body to a slimmer and way more elegant wine, with softer tannins and a pleasant acidity.
In Menfi, where the ocean breeze mitigates the temperatures during the day and enriches the grapes with a fresh saline character, the Nero d’Avola is mellow and intriguing: in a word, it’s a woman.

This short interview describes the main features of Cantine Barbera Nero d’Avola.

Q: What gender is your Nero d'Avola?
A: She’s a girl!
First, her real name is “Nera” d’Avola, and not “Nero” d’Avola… the label is wrong - just kidding :)
She’s a “Nera” because all women share the same characteristics: they are soft, and they show that hint of acidity that comes out whenever men make us woman a little angry.
In a world where most of the Nero d’Avolas are overpowerful and supermuscled, my “Nera” tastes and smells like a woman.

Q: How old is she?
A: She is a gorgeous thirty-year-old woman. Maybe a little bit older, however she looks younger than she is.

Q: Where is she from?
A: She comes from the sea.

Q: What would she tell if she could talk?
A: She’d tell of a beautiful place, where it’s never cold, a place where you can breathe the ocean, where agriculture is clean, rich, generous.
Menfi, Sicily: a place that everybody should visit at least once in a lifetime.

THE SHORT STORY

THE SHORT STORY

Grape variety: Inzolia grown in Dietro le Case vineyard
Soil: clay soil with calcareous components, very rich in limestones and sea minerals
Vineyard: planted in 1960s, head-trained bush vines
Winemaking: skin contact for 48 hours in steel tanks
Alcoholic fermentation: spontaneous, with wild yeast
Malolactic fermentation: spontaneous
Refining: 4 months on fine lees, in steel tanks
Aging: one oak barrel, where it ages in perpetuum with its sediment
Average production: a few dozen bottles every some years

Download wine sheet

WINEMAKING

The grapes are handpicked the first half of September, when they are fully ripe. The traditional pruning system - called "a pezzo e spalla" - and the age of the vines, allow slow constant ripening cycles and a great aromatic concentration.

The fermentation is spontaneous, with 2 days skin contact. After soft pressing, the fermentation continues for 8 days in steel tanks. After malolactic is completed, the wine refines on fine lees for about 4 months and is then racked into one single oak barrel, where it ages in perpetuum with its sediment.

The wine is bottled directly from the barrel no more than 2-3 times every decade.

TASTING NOTES

Altrimenti has a bright amber color, enlivened by golden hues. Its nose is predominantly tertiary, where fruity notes of apricot and ripe figs blend onto an intense and aromatic herbal background, enriched by roasted and dried nuts.

It is dry and full bodied to the palate, with a distinct savory personality that harmoniously meets a tannic finish.

SERVING TEMPERATURE: 54 - 58 °F
Pour Altrimenti in wide glasses, at a fresh but not chilled temperature.
Please avoid freezers and blast chillers, as well as a prolonged time in your home refrigerator: this wine is not filtered nor fined, and any temperature below 40 °F will mortify its complex aromas.

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