Etna and other Sicilians

Amid the doom and gloom surrounding Italy’s 2014 grape harvest, there is one wine region where growers are extremely pleased with their 2014 vintage – Etna in eastern Sicily, whose small districts, named after important wine villages, are called contrade. Some of those bottled as single-contrada expressions by Passopisciaro, the Etna estate belonging to Andrea Franchetti of Tuscany’s Tenuta di Trinoro, are mapped here. Etna’s harvest is generally late October so many of the grapes were still on the vine when I visited the island last month (see Sicily and the south – a selection).