Episode 6
Transcript – Episode 6: Benanti’s Etna: old vines, new perspectives
The Old Vine Conference Podcast.
Cynthia Chaplin:
Hello and welcome to the Old Vine Conference Podcast. This is Cynthia Chaplin, your host and today I'm thrilled to host Antonio and Salvino Benanti, the twin sons of Cavaliere Giuseppe Benanti, who very sadly passed away in 2023. The Benanti family has been instrumental in Etna's viticulture throughout history, beginning in 1890 with a domestic consumption type of wine, their very first wine production on the volcano. The brothers have been the custodians of the company since 2012. In 2007, Benanti was named Italian Winery of the Year by Gambero Rosso and has subsequently become the most award winning winery on Mount Etna. Etna has always inspired winemakers, enthusiasts and wine lovers.
Each slope of the mountain has its own history and presents a unique presentation of soil and climatic characteristics. And the Benanti name represents a profound respect for Etna's inimitable wine vocation. Their wines demonstrate a strong personality and an ability to exalt the territory. They are the only Etna winery to have vineyards on every slope of the Etna DOC,including vineyards well over 100 years of age. Antonio and Salvino oversee this important heritage, focusing on an excellence and unique quality of each location, where they now have an annual production of about 250,000 bottles per year, distributed throughout the most important markets worldwide.
Thank you both for joining me today. It's wonderful to be with you. We are in person at Benanti near Milo. It's wonderful to see you both.
Salvino Benanti:
Thank you Cynthia, thank you for visiting us. We look forward to exchanging our thoughts on Etna with you.
Antonio Benanti:
We're just as thrilled as you are to have you here.
Cynthia Chaplin:
Well, both of you left home at a very young age to study in other countries where you ultimately achieved business degrees and master's degrees. And you worked in finance outside of Italy for a long time. So how did that foreign experience shape your careers? And what made you decide to return to Etna to run the winery?
Antonio Benanti:
Okay, this is Antonio.I will answer this question. I think it's quite easy, you know, when it comes to, again, specifically finance or management, that basically helps you in running your own winery, which is again, a very serious venture where everything must be very carefully planned. Of course, you have the soil element and you have the nature element, but at the end of the day, this is also a venture where everything must be done accurately, where everything has to be done in the most professional way so as to then deliver in the glass the very best wine you can.
And also just disregarding the mere finance or management aspect, living in countries like the United Kingdom or Switzerland or France, and spending a lot of time in places like the United States, so in the very developed and discerning and well educated world, it also helps you to understand the very standard and the actual context in which very often these wines would eventually be sold and drunk…and consumed. So I think when we moved back here, we had a very good understanding of what was out there, and we also had a very good understanding of how to manage a…again, a small, boutique, premium business like our winery.
Cynthia Chaplin:
Well, it's great to actually sit here with both of you and we've walked in the vineyard together this afternoon, we tasted some wine together. And I know your father founded the modern day winery, you know, properly professional wine making, not just for domestic consumption, in 1988. And his goal was to achieve quality standards of absolute excellence onEtna, focusing on the indigenous varieties Nerello Mascalese, Nerello Cappuccio, and Carricante. And he worked really closely with many well known enologists from all over Europe as well as from Italy, including Salvo Foti, who is more or less the father of Etna winemaking. And Salvo started here at Benanti's vineyards. The collaborations your father created and his important pioneering work established Benanti as the universal precursor of contemporary Etna viticulture. Of course, wine has been made on Etna for thousands of years, but in the modern times, we're looking at sort of 25, 30 years. So almost 40 years have passed since Giuseppe, your dad, began making wine here. Tell us what has changed and developed since he started.
Salvino Benanti:
This is Salvino here. When my father started, it was a completely different era and a completely different world. He was in his mid-40s, he was a wine connoisseur, he was a wine aficionado, but he was also an entrepreneur. He was born here in Mount Etna, grew up here on the slopes of Etna in the town of Viagrande, because of his grandfather who used to take him out to the vineyard, he quickly learned that Etna was quite special. We have our own soil, volcanic sand, we have our own cool climate, and these grapes, which pretty much only grow here, are capable of delivering fine wine. So not only did he have a passion for fine wine, but he also had a bigger job as a pharmaceutical entrepreneur, because that was the new course the Benanti family had sort of taken after moving to sicily in the 1700s from northern Italy and, you know, making wine on the side and also having bigger jobs in the town of Catania. As a pharmaceutical entrepreneur, he had the chance to travel the world and taste fine wine, make a small fortune, let's say.
And so I guess after you turn 40, you start thinking more in terms of, you know, fulfilling your dreams rather than being too schematic. So he said, well, I like wine, I have some money. Let's try and make the best possible wine out of the indigenous varieties of wine. So he embarked on this, what seemed quite a crazy adventure at a time when Etna was a region which was not as well known as it is today. He devoted all of his personal money to making the best possible wine. And he started with super high end wines. He started with aged reds, aged whites. He was only interested in making wines which would last several decades. He wasn't thinking about every day. He wasn't… he didn't really have segmentation in mind. He didn't really have a strategy. He just wanted to make amazing wine and put his name on it.
So he spent a couple of decades doing that before passing things down to us. The pattern, obviously, as he started to make fine wine from local varieties and investing a lot in the local appellation, he started to draw attention from a number of curious journalists, a small clique, a small sort of group of aficionados, mostly from North America and the rest of Italy. And he started to receive guests at the winery and get to know journalists and attend fairs. And this has shed some light on it, and this has encouraged many others to Invest.
So obviously, 36 years later, soon, 37, as we enter 2025, we can say that there are many excellent wineries on Etna. They all probably stem from my father's original project. So having the guts to invest in an unknown territory and bet on grapes that nobody knew, took a crazy person to do this. My father was probably an eccentric, passionate person, he was just pursuing a dream. My brother and I, all, let's say what we have to do is convert his dream and his sort of family winery into still a family winery. But, you know, with more organization, proper management, and a formal strategy, aided by the fact that around us the rising tide is floating many boats, and that Etna is now very well known and that investing on Etna is now safer. But we must all give him credit for starting the whole thing.
Cynthia Chaplin:
Absolutely. We have to give Giuseppe credit. Benanti was the first wine ever reviewed from Etna by Wine Spectator. And both of you have said that the native grape varieties here are crucial to connecting the winemaking that has been part of Etna for centuries to Etna's future wine success. So tell us why these three grapes, Nerello Mascalese, Nerello Cappuccio, and Carricante are so important to Etna's wine?
Salvino Benanti:
If I may answer that. We all know that Etna is about great soils with a lot of minerals, black sands and a cool climate, a lot of sunshine. And the Mediterranean, the Mediterranean latitude and the altitude combining to sort of create a perfect environment for elegant wines.
We all know that. But it's also true that these wines are known today, but they were completely unknown many decades ago because Nerello Mascalese, Nerello Cappuccio, and Carricante are pretty much used at least to be very sort of obscure, unknown grapes.
My father was originally advised by a few experts to focus on grapes like Chardonnay or Pinot Noir to at least have an element that he could rely on, that he did not really have to spend much time explaining a certain grape type. But he said, you know, I'm on Etna. I want to use local grapes. Nerello Mascalese, has now demonstrated over the years that it's capable of producing incredibly elegant, earthy reds. Carricante probably was Italy's best kept secret in the age-worthy white wine arena. and Narello Capuccio is a lighter, versatile red that fits many occasions. So I think with hindsight, we can say that my father was right to bet on these grapes, because now everybody understands the potential of these grapes. Not just the potential, but the actual worth of these grapes. In enological terms, because we have, you know, almost four decades of vintages under our belt proving that these grapes age well. So my father did see something special in these grapes. Out of pride, out of stubbornness, out of determination, he decided to invest in these three grapes, and the rest is history. So these grapes are really capable of delivering very fine wine if you are open minded enough to try them, because once you do, you spontaneously sort of place them in a place in your ideal wine ranking in your mind, very near the top, in my opinion.
We were discussing while we were walking in the vineyards before that these varieties, although they have become better known in the last few decades, they are those that have survived a selection that lasted for thousands of years, made by the local growers because they are those that fared best in this territory in terms of yield and reliability and so forth. And besides that, what we have, what our father helped to discover is that these grapes are also true world class grapes when it comes to actually making wines. When you are a boutique producer in such a unique wine region, your only route, you know, to go down is to foster these indigenous varieties. And that's what we are doing. So if back then somebody like my brother said, was suggesting to my father that he actually at least added some of the international varieties to the production, it was because those are the benchmarks, the well known grapes. But now I think the whole new idea behind making these wines is we are from Etna, thousands of years brought these grapes to us. We and other wineries are making world class wines with these vines. And then it's up to us to actually tell the story and then, you know, build a community, a growing community of wine lovers and professionals that eventually get fond of these wines and endorse these wines. And I think Etna wines, you know, are wines that please both wine lovers, consumers and professionals. So to make a long story short, I think today the whole world, the whole world really loves Etna wines.
Cynthia Chaplin:
I think you're absolutely right. And of course, when we look at international varieties that were brought to Sicily and to Etna, it was after World War II, after the devastation to the vineyards, that the war brought, and international enologists and consultants were brought in to help. And of course, they suggested the replanting of international varieties. Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, things like this, which were outside of Sicily and certainly Etna's historical roots, where we've had these native varieties that came from Greece and, you know, the eastern part of Europe thousands of years ago. So we're looking now at the two of you carrying on your father's belief in these native varieties that came here six, seven, eight thousand years ago and really found a home in Sicily and on Etna in particular for these three Nerello Mascalese, Nerello Cappuccio, and Carricante. So Etna DOC is the oldest DOC in Sicily. It began in 1968, and since then it has evolved with official recognition, the contrade system in 2011. Basically, this is a system of unità geografiche aggiuntive, the additional geographical units of which there are now a total of 142. Bearing in mind that Italy as a country is smaller than California as a state, we're looking at a very tiny piece of land that has 142 geographic recognitions. So let's talk about how do we explain how important the contrada system is to wine production on Etna and why this complex system is needed in such a tiny place?
Salvino Benanti:
I think... this is Salvino again. Etna is a small region. We're talking about 1300 planted hectares and about 6 million bottles produced, maybe less in recent years because of the more sort of erratic pattern in yield and vintages. But let's say that it's a small region, but it's an incredibly complex region, because first of all, it's a volcano, and volcanoes are not stable environments. There are eruptions over the centuries and the millennia which have brought different types of lava to the surface of the different flanks of Etna. So as new eruptions have occurred, lava from different depths has been expelled and has landed or flown down flanks of Etna, adding different minerals. So we have soils of different age, soils of different compositions. And because the volcano sits by the sea, partially facing the sea, there are some parts of Etna which are heavily influenced by the sea and the breeze, and others which are farther from the sea.
So we have different microclimates. So different microclimates, different soils and different aspects because we have north, east and south. So the north face of Etna faces away from the sun, the east is heavily influenced by the sea itself, and the south directly faces sunlight.
So obviously it's sort of a mosaic of micro, micro regions, each sitting in a different spot within this matrix. Also elevation, we have lower elevation vineyards, higher elevation vineyards, all within, or we can consider high elevation...different rainfall rates. So, funnily enough, despite being a small region, Etna is quite complex. And areas like Randazzo, Castiglione, which are municipalities, Limoglossa, Milo, Via Grande, Tre Castagni, Santa Maria, Bianca Villa, have been further broken down into smaller areas called contradas. And contradas were identified by our ancestors,and they are parcels of different sizes containing a number of vineyards, sometimes a large number, sometimes a small number. And contradas usually, usually display consistent elements in terms of soil, in terms of climate. So if you know which contrada your grapes come from, you will know whether it's a contrada with warmer or cooler climate, more or less rain, younger or older soil, richer or leaner soil, etc. etc. So once you have these objective elements in mind, you can really understand why wines taste the way they do. So a small region with a lot of complexity. All we've tried to do is subdivide it into areas with objective characteristics that can be easily explained so that we can make the tasting of wine easier. Because, you know, each contrada will have its different characteristics and those will be reflected in the wine.
Cynthia Chaplin:
Well, it's interesting what you just said about being a mosaic of micro regions. When we look at the map of the contrada system, which is sort of a reverse sea, sort of a little backwards sliver of a moon around the north, east and south of Etna, the contrada map is several colors. It does look like a mosaic of 142 tiny parcels. You've said Salvino, and I'm going to put this on you, that, making wine on Etna obliges a profound respect for the unique historical vocations of each flank of the volcano, and always allowing yourself to be guided by the territory and the inseparable centuries old bond of vine and slope. This is something that's difficult for people to understand outside of Italy, where...and even outside of Etna. You know, in Italy, we've been making wine here for centuries, millennia. When we look at it, some of your vines are well over 100 years old. There are pre phylloxera, ungrafted vines, producing some of the most iconic wines that Benanti has to offer. So tell us about the contrade, where these vines grow and how you are maintaining them and curating this really invaluable genetic heritage that they represent.
Salvino Benanti:
All we're trying to do here is stick to what our ancestors have done. When people came here and they started planting grapes on Etna, they realized that the north of Etna, with its cooler climate and on average, bigger diurnal range, was suitable for making certain types of red So Nerello Mascalese, our autochthonous red grape, really thrives there. The east side of Etna, on average, is very rainy, only gets a lot of the...a large share of the morning sun, and tends to deliver very good results at high elevation, where ripening for red grapes is almost impossible. So it's an obvious perfect region for planting white grapes, whereas a southern slope, which faces south and can benefit from more sunlight, is more versatile. You can make both. So we have found vineyards of red grapes in the north, white grapes in the east, and both in the south. And this is for a reason. Our ancestors had studied these characteristics.
I'm going to look at Antonio now, because I know that he because I know that he really likes to dig deeply into the science. We won't say that Salvino called him a nerd earlier, but actually, Antonio likes to dig deep into the science of this, and it's important for delineating these things. So, Antonio, tell us your perspective on the contrade system and curating this genetic heritage with the old vines that you have.
Antonio Benanti:
The contrade system is something that already existed before the boom of Etna wine, and we are relying on something, again, that already existed, but it's the best system that is in place, although it has to still be substantiated by still generating much more data, for example, on soils and on all the variables that my brother mentioned. Again, what Benanti is doing in general is we just respected what my father did at the beginning, which was based on observing what was already there, which basically meant that before the whole project started, by driving all around Etna, he did notice how the south and the east was mostly planted with Carricante, although there was, in general, very little of it, whereas the north was almost exclusively Nerello Mascalese, and we are just still doing that because this is, again, thousands of years brought to us. And maybe, if I can be a little bit critical about what has been happening in the last couple of decades, I think maybe today on Etna or in the last couple of decades, some plantings have been driven by market demand and not so much by what that specific area of Etna has historically been suited for.
So if you visit our five vineyards, two of them in the north, in Randazzo and in Castiglione Sicilia Rovittello, you will only find Nerello Mascalese, whereas in Milo, in our Contrada Rinazzo vineyard, you will not find a single vine of Nerello Mascalese, because it's exclusively Carricante. Whereas in the south, where it's slightly easier climatic growing conditions, we grow both grapes with the addition of Nerello Cappuccio in the Southwest. And the Southwest has historically been known for being the ideal place to grow Nerello Cappuccio, because it's quite a fragile grape that needs more intensity of sunlight, it needs slightly warmer temperatures, it needs a drier climate, and that's why we grow it just there. So we do realize that we are a minority because only a few wineries maybe have been so consistent and maybe respectful of the tradition on Etna. And maybe today a lot of the decisions are based on what the market requests. But we are fortunate and also we have the integrity that basically, in a nice way, obliges us to stick to what we have always done.
Now, the contrade system, again, is a way of simplifying and making clearer the communication of Etna, because the conversation will start with a map in front of you, and you will be able to easily place that contrada on the map. So first you will talk about the slope, and then within a slope, explaining why a specific slope is more suited for a grape and less for another. Then you get to the more in depth level of breaking down that slope or that village into contrade. And like we said before, a contrada is a specific sub zone where you have a consistency of all those variables that make up a terroir. So the elevation, the aspect, the rainfall rate, the diurnal range, and volcanic soil type and a few others. So by now, or at least when the knowledge of Etna will have spread it more, and when more and more people will be more knowledgeable about Etna, we will be able to relate a specific contrada to a specific wine And then you say, okay, I know that, say, Contrada Rinazzo in Milo has this specific profile, and therefore I expect a wine coming from Milo to have this profile. Now, it will still take a little while because again, we still need to dig out a lot of info about the soils and about so many more variables. And also the vintage effect will play a role, but we're getting there. If we look back to 36 years ago, this is already, you know, it looks like 100 years have passed since then, given, you know, the kind of progress that was made since then. We are preserving this heritage again, just by keeping on doing what has always been that year. Keeping the yields low, having very few treatments, preventive treatments, and again, a lot of manual work in the vineyard. Just being respectful. And this is how these vines, 100 plus year old vines, made it to the present, because they have been treated like that. Plus the beneficial influence of Etna of having plenty of sunshine, ventilation, drainage in the soil that makes sure that these conditions are very healthy. And that's why today on Etna, having very old vineyards is rare, but far less rare than in other wine regions.
Cynthia Chaplin:
Absolutely. And this very intelligent decision to vinify wines based on individual contrade locations has paid off for Benanti. It was a very forward thinking decision, you know, clearly worked out with your father before you and the two of you together since 2012, to keep to this idea of really focusing on a different location for individual grapes. So, you know, we're looking at some of your wines there sitting in front of us, which is lovely. Pietra Marina, Etna Bianco Superiore, Rovitello Particella 341, both grown on some old vines, shooting to fame for their immense quality. And in fact, 2007 saw Pietra Marina being the first Etna wine to obtain Tre Bicchieri from Gambero Rosso. And Benanti was named the Italian Winery of the year that same year. So let's talk a little bit about Pietra Marina first. I know you've changed to blend new and old vines. You've now got a new clone that's more resistant. This is very interesting in terms of the future of Etna. Tell us about the vineyard for Pietra Marina and the location in the soil and the climate, as well as the winemaking that produces this really stunningly beautiful expression of Carricante that is so elevated compared to styles that are less careful in their plantings.
Antonio Benanti:
You know, I think when it comes to Pietra Marina, the family story, in 2007, the awarded the Tre Bicchieri not only to the latest release, but also to the 1997 vintage. And they called it the Tre Bicchieri Pentito, like something that they regret, they have missed because then they have tasted the wine years later, which is again evidence of the fact that these wines are age worthy. So, like you said, we already, back in 1998, we were already making wines from specific contrade. We have the single variety Nerello Cappuccio from Contrada Cavalliere in the Southwest, and Rovitello from Contrada Dafara Galluzzo in Castillo di Sicilia, Rovitello, Monte Serra from Contrada Monte Serra in Vie Grande, and then the Pietra Marina in Milo So, like my brother said, my father immediately aimed very high at making site specific wines. Back then, we were not claiming a contrada. It was not even part of the appellation exhibit. But that was the way our wine was made already in 1998. Going to the specific wine first, allow me to just say words on our approach to making white wines. I personally believe that today, maybe there is a risk of losing an identity of what an Etna Bianco or an Etna Bianco Superiore is because of maybe too many approaches to vinifying Carricante on Etna, whereas I think with Nerello Mascalese, it's more consistent and it's more easily recognizable. But on Etna, of course, this is, you know, this is part of being a winemaker. You have the freedom to, let's say, personalize your wine, but I think when you get too creative, you're at risk of weakening this bond between the place and the wine. So our own choices again, since the very first vintage in 1990, was to never blend Carricante, to only use the indigenous grape, Carricante unblended, to only grow Carricante on the two slopes where Carricante has always been planted, the eastern slope and the southern slopes, to never use any oak. So protective neutral vinification. And also since 2010, to use our own yeasts. We want to really maximize typicity. And besides that, we also practice and we are very fond of lees contact…and a late release of wines like Pietra Marina or you know, late release of red wines like Rovitella, Sierra della Contessa. The Pietra Marina wine comes from Milo, of course. Milo. This is important. It's the only village out of the 20 villages of the Etna DOC appellation that can claim the Etna Bianco Superiore appellation, which today, by the latest data of the consorzio of the Etna DOC, accounts for roughly 2% of the Etna bottlings. So the vineyard is in Milo in Contrada Rinazzo. Rinazzo is one of the three high elevation contrada in Milo at 800 meters above sea level. So it's about 2,400ft and it's very close to the sea. It's just 6.4 kilometers, 6.7 kilometers, so it's constantly blown by the sea breeze. And like I said this morning when we… No, well, earlier when we met, it gets the healthier sunshine, the earlier hours of the day and then by the time the sun is very intense, it's already not directly facing the vineyard. It's also a vineyard, of course, that is planted with the Alberello system, the head trained bush vine of about, you know, with about 8,000 vines per hectare, so plenty of density. Purely manual work in the vineyard. It's terraced, so all the vines don't create shade on other vines and so they all benefit from great luminosity and great ventilation because it's literally a very steep vineyard with kilometers of lava stone walls. The diurnal range is there, but it's slightly mitigated by the presence of the sea. But it's on average, one of the coolest parts of the volcano. So these are very much mountain wines where when you actually have them in your glass, you will find this salinity that really stands out. And this sort of mineral note clearly defines the Milo wines. The actual source is actually older and younger vines. And again, by now, the wine spends 30... soon to maybe reach 36 months on the fine lees. So you must be truly patient and then give it at least a year of bottle time. So it's at least five years by the time it's released, four to five years. Like you said, one of our icons, and probably one of the wines, if not the wine that has put sort of… shed light on Etna and put Etna on the map. We're very proud of our approach to vinifying white wines because we think that it's highly respectful of the territory and the grape itself.
Cynthia Chaplin:
Let's take a look at the other two iconic Benanti wines, the Rovitello Particello 341 and the Serra della Contessa Particello, number 587, both of which were created in 2015. So the two of you were here directing the company at that time, and these are traditional blends of native Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio. So why are the location of these vines so important? And you even included the contrade names in the label names of the wines. So fill us in on the contrade and the winemaking behind these two very important old vine, prestigious, iconic Etna reds.
Antonio Benanti:
Right. These two wines, actually, they date back to the early 90s and mid-90s respectively, Rovitello and Serra della Contessa. But up until 2014, they were standard Etna Rossos. So they were field blends of Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio. And they were aged for a couple of years before release. We decided in 2015 to isolate the old vine plots within these two specific vineyards and to start vinifying the old vine grapes separately. So 587 is the plot, the number on the map for Serra della Contessa and 341 for Rovittello. They yield about 3,500-4,000 kilos of grapes every year. And we have decided to isolate them and vinify them separately. So we have basically taken those two labels and upgraded them to Riserva. So the aging went from two to five years. Two in large barrels, two in tanks, one in the bottle. And the source of the grapes went from undifferentiated to old vines only.
So the younger grapes that did not...no longer contributed to the making of Nerello Mascalese, Rovitello and Serra della Contessa have become contrada wines. So up in the north, the younger Rovitello vines are now, basically, they are vinified as Contrada Dafara Galluzzo, and the younger vines in Via Grande in the Serra della Contessa area are released as Contrada Monte Serra. So basically, from individual vineyards, we have created separate, different wines. Old vines, younger vines.
Salvino Benanti:
These younger vines could even be 30 or 35 years old, but they are not 100 years old…
Cynthia Chaplin:
We are looking at…in recent days, just a week or two ago, OIVE announced that their definition of old vine was 35 years. So Antonio just said, those are young vines. When we're looking at these vines that are over 100 years old and compared to vines also 35 years old, we see this vast difference. So we notice that there is a lot of work to be done in the category of old vines. But we're very happy that OIVE just recognized 35 years old is a good place to start.
Salvino Benanti:
So we singled out the…
Antonio Benanti:
Yeah, we've singled out the two parcels. The century old vines. Exactly. We've carved them out of the vinification of the previous at Etna Rosso's, and we've made specific Riserva's out of them. This is important. The parcel number didn't exist. So basically, once you actually draw it yourself, then you are assigned a number. So Particella 587 or 341 did not exist.
Cynthia Chaplin:
Who assigned the number?
Salvino Benanti:
The local register.
Antonio Benanti:
The local register. What you do is you go there and say, look I have this big vineyard. I would like to fragment it. I would like to isolate the old vines. So you draw yourself, GPS and everything. You isolate the old vines, and then you split what used to be a larger parcel into two new parcels And then you have created a parcel for the old vines.
Salvino Benanti:
Yeah. And then you're given a number that you cannot choose…
Antonio Benanti:
It's random. It could be anything. So I think 5, 8, 7, and 3, 4, 1 sound good. We're lucky.
Salvino Benanti:
It's random…
Cynthia Chaplin:
It's like when we name a star and you can choose any name. But this is fascinating for, again, the history of Etna and the future of Etna. These just get assigned randomly. I'm enjoying this story and hearing it from both of you…
Antonio Benanti:
It depends on the computer system at the local municipality. So if they have been working on other parcels within the same municipality, they've reached number 586. You are next in line. 587. So we are assigned these numbers, which we find nice because we have...We have to...Yeah. And basically we have isolated the old vines and there is incredible quality. These vines are almost 100 years old in the case of Rovitello, over 100 years old in the case of Serra della Contessa. And so the low yield, the concentration, delivers very fine grapes. And what we do then, we age them for a long time, large barrels, in stainless steel and then in the bottle, so we release them five years after harvest.
Salvino Benanti:
May I add a couple of things on the vineyards? We visited the Serra della Contessa vineyard now, a few hours ago. The Serra della Contessa vineyard sits on a very steep flank of an extinct little volcano, little crater called Monte Serra. So it's incredibly well ventilated and it's not far from the sea. Again, just a little bit more than 6 km. So it's less extreme climatic conditions. Some people have defined this the Barbaresco of Etna, given the sort of smoother profile, the soils here on the very flank of Monte Serra tend to be composed mostly of this pumice stone with great drainage, a little less rich. So vines tend to have very low yields, which is actually great for quality and concentration. And that again is the case for the Serra della Contessa vineyard. Dafara Galluzzo, which is the vineyard where we actually make the Rovitello Particella...Etna rosso Reserve Particella 341 is in the municipality of Castiglione di Sicilia, within the fraction of Rovitello. And this is the highest vineyard in Rovitello. So Rovitello has a much smaller vineyard surface compared to the neighboring fractions like Solicciata and Passo Picciaro, because it was largely covered by two eruptions in 1911 and 1923. So not that long ago, in a way. So there are fewer vineyards. And our vineyard at 750 meters above sea level, so it's 300 meters higher than Serra della Contessa, has been partially destroyed by the 1911 lava flow, the eruption. Here, the vineyard is not on a slope, it's actually terraced, sort of more sandy soils. So a little bit more water retention, richer soils, higher yields. So here, of course we you know, make a bigger effort when it comes to pruning and lowering the yields, but probably more finesse, more sort of more floral, and wine with more elegance. So Serra della Contessa ends up being maybe a more pronounced, rounder wine that can please maybe a bigger audience.
And Contrada Dafara Galluzzo like I said, it sits at 750 meters north facing, limited or no influence from the sea there Higher diurnal range. Soils tend to retain water a little bit more. These wines, again, tend to eventually have more finesse and balance compared to the Southeast, where it's more about the concentration and the roundness of the wine. So, again, two very different wines. What's most important is that they truly reflect the place where they're made. And like you said at the beginning, These are not 100% Nerello Mascalese because they date back to 1910 for Serra della Contessa, 1925 for Rovitello. And back then, nobody was thinking about single variety wines. And so alongside a very dominant portion of Nerello Mascalese, you have 10, 15% of Nerello Cappuccio in Monte Serra and between 5 and 10% of Nerello Cappuccio in Rovitello. So they are field blends, again, almost exclusively 100% Nerello Mascalese, but they're actually field blends of Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio,
Cynthia Chaplin:
Which, when we think about it historically is the way that wines were made on Etna. They were field blends, again with grapes that came from far away, thousands of years ago. So we're looking at a story that has gone from bigger field blends down to smaller selected parcels where we're looking at particular percentages of Nerello Mascalese versus Nerello Cappuccio. And, you know, you alluded to earlier that Benanti has been at the forefront of several wine research projects, including a very thorough, in depth five year trial to select and isolate indigenous Etna yeast, properly Benanti yeast. The project started in 2005, and by 2010, it resulted in four proprietary patents. Whose idea was the project? What was the goal about the indigenous proprietary yeast going forward? How are you going to make use of the information that came from this study? Because we're looking at… We're sort of 15 years down the line now. What did that indigenous yeast study contribute to the wines that you're making, and how are you going to use it going forward?
Salvino Benanti:
We are all about typicity. My Father, again, is known for being the pioneer of fine wine making with Etna indigenous grapes. And so obviously, modern winemaking implies… Well, not everybody follows this route, but those who do want to control the fermentation temperature and do want to, in a way, make sure that they get a specific result, they will add yeast. And the story, the story of typicity really lacked an element, which is the very yeast. So my father felt that, again, choosing the right locations, fostering and only vinifying the indigenous varieties was hugely important. But again, if at some stage in the vinification, you had to add a commercial yeast derived from another grape from somewhere else, because the yeast not only helps you bring fermentation to an end, but can also characterize the very taste of the wine by helping some elements express themselves, then this was potentially and very objectively an element that could really put that typicity at risk. So he and Salvo decided to start our own study aimed at selecting, well, identifying and eventually selecting yeasts from the very vineyards. And they were tested throughout five years, because at the beginning, more than 300 were identified. Not all of them were Saccharomyces cerevisiae. And those that were, were about 180. And they all went through micro vinifications until eventually we identified four that were not only the most reliable technically, so they resisted to temperature. They were able to prevail on other yeast. You could be sure that the fermentation would be triggered and brought to an end by that specific yeast, but also in terms of a more discretionary parameter, which was the actual tasting of the wines made from using that yeast. So we also had a panel tasting these wines and knowing the typical aromas and flavors of the variety. Eventually, that played a big role in the decision. So those that were selected were those that were both reliable technically and also were able to let the typical aromas and flavors of the variety stand out. So these are four. And since the 2010 vintage, we have been using them. So by now, it's 14 years. To my knowledge, we are the only winery on Etna that went that far and that deep in the research.
And again, it was a very significant effort, time consuming, lengthy, expensive. But I think it's further evidence of this winery's mission to really put typicity in the spotlight and make sure that we are truly representing Etna. Of course, my father's pharmaceutical background as a chemist background did help. We worked with a professional lab. It was a very, very thorough project. That, by the way, is on our website, benanti.it in the download section.So that's why we did it. And again, it's another legacy of our father. Again, in an attempt to make sure that our wines are as typical as possible.
Cynthia Chaplin:
You both have so many legacies from your father I know that in 2002, Benanti became the first producer of sparkling wines professionally and commercially on Etna.
Salvino Benanti:
Made from Carricante.
Cynthia Chaplin:
Made from Carricante assolutamente. So what was the impetus to make these wines? This was when your father was still in charge of the company. How had the production of your sparkling wines changed in the last 20 years? And what are you making now? We tasted this afternoon Lamorèmio, which is the Brut Rose, but the Carricante is the one that you began with. So since 2002, up until now, let's talk a little bit about the sparkling wine production.
Antonio Benanti:
Yeah. In 2002 we were already sort of 14 years into the life of the winery and about 12 years into the production of Carricante based Pietra Marina and then eventually the everyday white. And my father was gaining some experience on Carricante. And again, the beauty of being a one man show, which was the case back then, is that you can make your own decisions and call the shots and just answer to yourself. So my father said, I like sparkling.
He was starting to taste Carricante with people around the world. And I believe one specific collector asked, why don't you make a sparkling out of it? You know, it's a neutral grape, it's not overly aromatic. It shows an evolution profile which is similar to Chardonnay in a way with the complexity coming from bottle aging and lees contact. So why don't you try making a sparkling out of it? So our father tried.
Salvino Benanti:
Our father tried and my father succeeded… (Laughter)
Antonio Bananti:
Eventually. Eventually at the beginning, he was getting a little bit of help from Sud Tirol, from Alto Adige. And the process was completely outsourced. Our grapes were sent. Well, we were sort of fermenting them. Fermentation
Cynthia Chaplin:
…base wine…
Antonio Bananti:
We would send it up to Sud Tirol, Alto Adige and we would occasionally travel up there to see how the wine was developing. But then in 2016, we decided to switch. Switched to a consulting agreement with Eno Italia from Franciacorta, Italy's premier sparkling wine region. And since then, so it's been about eight, nine years, we've been led by the hand by professionals from Franciacorta who assist us in all the process. We have our own yeast suitable for the first fermentation of high acid, low sugar grapes that are suitable for becoming sparkling wine. And then once we have the base wine, Eno Italia, our partner joins the process and guides us in terms of liqueurs, the Tirage..liqueurs d'expedition...So we have to use these French names because they are experts at making sparkling. Let's give them the credit they deserve. And then basically help us with all the little details that must not be overlooked if you are to produce a fine sparkling. Because making a sparkling wine is a completely different game from making non sparkling.
So in my opinion, because you cannot gain expert knowledge overnight, you must be humble and you must be led by the experts. So we are very happy to be led by Eno Italia and we're learning a lot from them. And this partnership is definitely due to last for several years because I think we managed to get a very elegant, sparkly wine from our grapes with their intervention. And we're very confident that we can maybe even produce a little bit more in the future. At the moment we're only producing about 10,000 bottles between three labels, white, rose and a longer aged white. But there's room for more. All you need is, you know, the time and the resources to expand maybe, you know, maybe double its production while keeping it incredibly small in size, but, you know, at least meet a little bit more of the huge demand that we're facing out there. In 2002, there was maybe one producer of sparkling wine on Etna Murgo using Nerello Mascalese, and nobody had ever attempted making a sparkling wine out of Carricante. So my father, being a very creative and daring and ambitious person, decided to have a go at it first, because like Salvino said, by then we had developed almost a 15 years long experience with Carricantes. The grapes consistently come from the southern slope of Etna. And again, it might be an ancillary production because we produce, like Salvino said, a total of just under 10,000 bottles. So about 6,000 bottles of Noblesse and 4,000 bottles of Lamorèmio, plus a few bottles of Noblesse 48 months. So it might be ancillary when it comes to the incidents on the winery's sales, shall we say. But again, it's another testimony of innovation at a time when in 2002 nobody was making it, and back then there were maybe, maybe 10, 12 wineries on Etna. So it's a prehistoric time. A few years ago, seven years ago, we added the Rossato, which is an Etna DOC. Even still today, the Carricante Spumante cannot claim the Etna Appellation but just like aging a Carricante or releasing a single variety Nerello Cappuccio, you know, my father was not looking for wines that were going to take a sort of commercial shortcut. We wanted something that was truly unique. And the Sparkling Carricante is one of these wines that eventually, still today, we are known for, even though we make such few bottles.
Cynthia Chaplin:
Well, and it's interesting, this conversation about being niche with sparkling here on Etna.There's a lot of debate about the future of Etna and the DOC. As you said, the Carricante sparkling still doesn't receive the DOC. The contrade system is also under debate. And Salvino said just in August this year that once there were 15 of us producers here on Etna, and now we have to divide the success among 200. We need tighter rules and specifications, otherwise we're going to lose our identity. And what is missing on Etna is a large cooperative where the smaller producers could deliver their grapes. In this way, they would not be abandoned and left to the mercy of complicated vintages, which we've seen in the past couple of years. So let's talk about this. What would you both like to see happen on Etna going forward? Your father was completely influential in what Etna is today. So the two of you are holding his reputation in your hands, for better or for worse. What would you like to see happening going forward, particularly regarding regulations and more definition in the denomination.
Salvino Benanti:
Now, because you have quoted me, I would like to comment further on that. My comment on the co-op was part of an informal interview that resulted from a dinner we had with some people, some journalists, at a very nice hotel in Taormina this summer. But the cooperative, it's just a symbol of idea of joining forces. It doesn't have to be a cooperative. I think…
Cynthia Chaplin:
…cooperatives work well in parts of Italy. We know in Trentino we have some of the best cooperatives. In Puglia, we have some great cooperatives. It's not a bad idea. This is an idea that can help small producers.
Salvino Benanti:
What I think is that Etna is a small region. It's a very difficult region to work in because no mechanization, high cost, commercial success, which is at the moment only really shared by a couple of dozen wineries, maybe out of a couple of hundred. So I think it makes sense to try and generate some efficiency by joining forces, joint investments, maybe not necessarily a cooperative with an undifferentiated Etna brand on its label, but maybe a joint production facility. Where everybody can… that everybody can use to make their wine and put their name on it.
Because making wine is incredibly complicated and complex. A lot of people approach it as a dream, like my father. My father was very successful at being unsuccessful. So for the first 10, 15, 20 years, he invested a lot of money that only now are we starting to recover. Because making wine means that you're investing for the very, very, very long term. And sometimes you will not see any returns for a long time. So you need to be incredibly organized and cash rich if you want to finance your business until the wheel starts to turn. Devoting your life to making fine wine does not mean that the best wine cruiser will drink it overnight, rate it appropriately, or an importer will come and knock on your door.
Unfortunately, I sometimes use the word brutal. Making wine, just like any other activity, must be considered entrepreneurship. The numbers must add up. You must have the right price, you must have the right portfolio composition. You must have a distribution network. You must be financially stable, and you must be always willing to invest more to fuel your growth. And this takes time, effort, and a lot of resources. So I think that in a small region, to be so fragmented as we are today is a risk. I'm speaking as somebody who sells out by allocation and whose only concern is to make sure that we make the best possible wine, always go for higher quality and better positioning and maintain our role as educators and as sort of promoters of the appellation in general. But other producers out there who do not have the history, reputation, the resources, may struggle. So joining forces might make sense.
Unfortunately, making one is also a matter of pride. People want their name on a bottle. People are devoting their personal resources. But at some point, your business model must make sense, otherwise it becomes difficult. So I was just suggesting that a lot of people out there join forces in an effort to make better wine in better facilities and share a budget for marketing. Because. Because at the end of the day, you must get the market's attention. And putting Etna, these four magic letters, on your label, is not enough. You may get initial attention, but then the wine must be impeccably made and be an excellent product. And in order to do that, you need technology, you need investment. So let's take this very, very seriously, and let's join forces. People out there who need to sort of pool resources to make the best possible product, which is what the market wants.
Cynthia Chaplin:
And we say “we need follow-through.” So it's fantastic that Etna has risen to prominence in the global market in the past. 20 years with some variations in quality, as you said. And now we need follow-through on that. And I am sitting here with the two of you. You're both young men. You've said you're not enologists. Maybe some of your children will become enologists. But you are about the same age as your father was when he began working in the wine industry. You've had just over 10 years experience yourself running the company. Tell us your hopes and your dreams for Benanti's future. Both of you, where would you like to see your winery and its vineyards and its wines in 10 years time?
We know, you know, as we've discussed, that Etna is a little fractured at the moment. We're trying to find a common ground with 142 contrade, how to exalt the wines and the quality. And being a premium style in a global market, what do you hope for for Benanti in the next 10 years?
Salvino Benanti:
I think we're going down the right path because, well, we've all agreed that we should progress to DOCG status. So we have put forward a specific request to tighten the rules. Things like lower yields, longer aging, etc. etc. If you want to produce a contrada label wine or a Riserva. So I think we're going in the right direction. It might make life harder for those who can afford to bottle the wine earlier, to store it, for longer, to have lower yields, etc.
But it's what the market wants. If you want to compete with the best appellations in the world, you must raise your standards. You must do more research on soils, on climates, demonstrate clear links between what's happening out there and what you taste in the glass and have impeccable tasting rooms, proper communication, speak better English, etc. etc.
Because the world market demands that. So I think the future for Etna is bright. It will become more difficult for less organized wineries to keep up, but we can definitely create a lower ranked appellation for those who cannot keep up. But what we cannot do is slow down and, you know, wait for those who have some ground to cover. We need to go forward with our ideas, embrace the kind of expectations that we need to face and that the market sort of has on Etna and have the sophisticated collectors, critics and consumers in mind as the people we sort of report to. It's inevitable if you want to become a prestigious winery, and I think a good amount of wineries want to go down that path. It might be a fracture between those who want to follow this route and those who may prefer to sort of not go down the same route. But at some point, it's going to be very inevitable that we all become more and more organized and more and more competent in order to compete with the best wine regions.
Antonio Benanti:
Regarding Etna first. So the previous question, what I would like to see in the next 10 years is probably a more consistent and more recognizable style coming from Etna. And like I said, as more and more wineries develop more experience, I think the overall quality, which is already high, will be even higher and the wines from Etna would be more and more recognizable. I think it's hugely important, I hope, to see in the DOC rules decreasing amounts of Catarratto being allowed in Etna Bianco, because as we know, Catarratto is not a Etna DOC grape. I hope to see more and more hard facts and information regarding the contrade. So I hope that there will be a system to gather more data from Etna at large and from specific contrade so that we will all be able to go deeper and tell the story, even in a more detailed and specific way. Because I think Etna still has, you know, not a long way, but, you know, some way to go in order to achieve that. I hope to see more and more wineries confident about picking local enologists as opposed to maybe enologists that come from other regions. I mean, they do, they do bring diversity and expertise. And, you know, I'm not, I'm not speaking negatively about professionals coming from other regions, but I do really hope that Etna will prove that these kinds of high end, world class premium professionals can also be developed locally. There are a number of wineries, including ours and a few of other leading ones that do have local enologists, and I hope that this will be an increasing trend, growing trend of having local expertise. And I also hope, like Salvino said, that the Consorzio, which is doing a great job, will be more and more instrumental at providing the tools to communicate Etna better, to again, improve communication through the right kinds of events. When I was president of the Etna DOC appellation, we came up with the idea of the Etna Days. Etna Days is actually the name I picked. And eventually the members voted in favor of this name, among many others. So it's something I picked, and I hope we will not lose the integrity. We shouldn't be too tempted by what the market wants and by sort of taking shortcuts. My father used to say, there are no shortcuts for quality. And that is absolutely true. So we do not have to chase, as a wine region, immediate success, like Salvino said. We have to be willing to keep on investing and maybe delaying the payback time by again, doing the things the right way, which might be the more expensive way and the more time consuming way. But the world out there now, like Salvino said, is the very discerning and in a way selective and competent audience. So we are addressing that audience. We are addressing a consumer base or a base of wine lovers that again, is more and more knowledgeable. So Etna, in my opinion, yes, like you said, it has made a name for itself, it's in demand. But we're not at that stage yet where we are established for good. In a very Sicilian way, "We're still in time to make it all collapse" by making the wrong decisions, and we shouldn't do that. So we have to be strict and again, be very aware of what's out there. Our, you know, those who are looking at us, we have to, like you said, preserve this heritage without, you know, without exaggerating. Because sometimes Etna is… The whole story about Etna sometimes is sort of more folkloristic and doesn't really...you know, we don't need that, you know, we don't need to emphasize the volcano, the explosion and doing all that. You know, we need to just talk about the very hard facts about Etna without making a caricature of Etna. Etna is a very serious place that has to be told professionally. It has to be...because again, the most competent wine lovers and critics out there are in love with Etna. We already have a duty towards the region itself, the Etna region, towards these people, the great fan base we have built, not to disappoint them. So we have to just keep on raising the bar. We truly believe we are on the right path. Because this path is something we have worked on for 12 years, my brother and I, relentlessly, of course, with our team that we had basically no turnover, no rotation. It's always the right people. We have built a very in depth knowledge of Etna and of our winery in the process. So we are on the right path. We might...you know, we will release one or two new wines over the next few years, but again, what you see now, who we are now, is the result of careful and hard work over the last 12 years. We will build a new cellar, like we were discussing before, so we would have a new facility, not to grow volumes, but just to work because where we are in the cellar, where we are now, we've been there since 1988, so it will be an upgrade, but not to grow volumes at all. And like Salvino always said, we want to be positioned and known as being one of the most prominent wineries in the old world, I think that is still our goal and I think we are on the right track.
Cynthia Chaplin:
I am so grateful to both of you for joining us on the Old Vine Conference Podcast this evening, for sharing your winery with me and our listeners, and for telling us about your history, your present and your future. This is something that's very important to preserving old vine heritage and also making sure that consumers and professionals in the world of the wine sector understand what Etna is about. So thank you both.
Antonio Benanti:
Thank you Cynthia.
Salvino Benanti:
Thank you Cynthia. It was great for us to be part of this.