Etnella - Orientale Sicula 2025

Orientale Sicula 2025 is a natural wine crafted by Etnella, in the Sicily region in Italy. This rosé wine is made with Nerello Mascalese grapes. Etnella is Davide Bentivegna, working alone on the north-eastern slope of Mount Etna from the farm at Notti Stellate. He is Sicilian but came to wine late, leaving a corporate job in Milan and learning first from an elderly neighbour who had a single vineyard, then from Stefano Bellotti, Aldo Viola and Frank Cornelissen. His plots are spread across several contrade between 600 and 1,000 metres, the vines trained low in the local alberello bush style that rules out any machine, with the old dry-stone terraces rebuilt and olive and fruit trees planted among the rows. Each label carries a red dot and a number, and the number is the altitude of that plot. Orientale Sicula is Nerello Mascalese off two heights, 500 and 750 metres, from vines ranging between five and fifty years old. One day on skins with the stems left in, then steel.