Last September I attended ‘Etna Days’, a four-day immersion in the wines of Europe’s largest still-active volcano. It complements the so-called Contrade dell’Etna, a delightful scrum of producers and wines and the brainchild of Passopisciaro’s Andrea Franchetti, who made the clever link between the contrade (vineyard districts) and single vineyards analogous to the classified vineyards of Burgundy. It became one of Italian wine’s most successful recent marketing ploys.
Contrade dell’Etna was as joyful as it was impossible to navigate for a journalist like me...
