Etna has become the most talked about wine region of Italy and much of its fame is owed to Marco de Grazia and Tenuta delle Terre Nere winery.

For years, vineyards surrounding Etna were dormant and abandoned, forgotten on the remote slopes of Europe’s highest volcano. In the late 1980s, a handful of winemakers, driven by a feeling of nostalgia for their roots or by their quest for the next big thing in the global market, came to the volcano hoping for a share in a raw treasure. In the early 2000s, Marco de Grazia, one of the pioneer exporters of Italian wine to America, brought his vast knowledge of the America market to Etna. Marco soon realised the specific terroir’s superiority and became its humble servant. He applied organic farming methods to the vineyards, delimited and separated the best crus into single vineyard vinifications and used his delicate touch in the winery with a profound sense of respect and sensitivity towards Etna’s old vines. Soon, his wines’ fine nature led wine enthusiasts to compare them with the wines from the slopes of Côte d’Or and Etna was nicknamed “Burgundy of the Mediterranean”. Bolder than the best Burgundy wines you have ever tasted and more ethereal and pleasant than the tight, austere but great Barolo wines, Marco de Grazia’s wines is an atypical melange of elegance, force and minerality.   It is like having the roaring volcano in your glass. The remarkable vineyards of Tenuta delle Terre Nere which comprise exclusively white and red indigenous varieties stretch all the way from the village of Solicchiata until the town of Randazzo on the north-eastern slopes of Etna. Among them, the pre-phylloxera La Vigna di Don Peppino located within the cru Calderara Sottana, is a unique legacy to the area being a small parcel that managed to escape damage from phylloxera and is approximately 140 years old. Featured in Mr. Vertigo in small quantities, the iconic wine from this tiny (0,8 hectares) pre-phylloxera vineyard is Etna’s quintessence and one of the greatest red wines of Italy.