2022 Buscemi "Il Bianco" Sicilia IGT (Bronte)

A ripe and refined white wine that brings together the fruity Grecanico and the suave and fresh Carricante, planted at altitude on Etna’s pure volcanic soils. This is both mountain wine and island wine at once; sea-salty minerality plus high-altitude freshness blend for a Sicilian white that will astound. Aromas of ripe white fruit, apricots, lemon zest, smoke, crushed stones. Medium-bodied, fresh, long finish.

REGION: Sicily • Bronte (Etna)
APPELLATION: Sicilia DOC
BLEND: 70% Carricante, 30% Grecanico
VINEYARDS: The ‘Tartaraci’ vineyard sits on the northwest slope of Mount
Etna, in the Bronte region. Facing northwest

ALTITUDE: 1010m asl
AGE OF VINES: 90 years, on average
WINEMAKING: Hand-harvested. Destemmed; fermented on indigenous
yeasts in temperature-controlled large oak tonneaux. Malolactic conversion
allowed. Aged in tonneaux for 8 months. Lightly filtered.

‘Tartaraci’ is a contiguous, single-vineyard plot totaling just under four acres on the northwest side of Mount Etna, at 980m feet above sea level. An ancient vineyard under cultivation for hundreds of years, ‘Tartaraci’ is prized for its very old vines (on average, 90 years) trained as bush vines (albarello) and planted on the pure volcanic soils of Etna.

Facing north, ‘Tartaraci’ allows for a slow and long maturation of fruit, with large diurnal shifts given the plot’s altitude. Harvest often takes place in late October and stretches into early November.

Vines are cared for sustainably, and harvest is by hand. White grapes are destemmed and fermented and aged inlarge, older oak tonneaux. Production levels each vintage are very low, with less than 2,000 bottles of white wine and 4,000 bottles of red wine.

Winemaker Mirella Buscemi, originally from Syracuse, is a trained chemist; it was her grandparents who owned vineyards and who inspired in her a love of viticulture and wine. Fate showed its hand once she met and married winemaker Alberto Graci (of Azienda Agricola Graci in Passopisciaro), with a wedding gift of ‘Tartaraci,’ the plot of land once owned by naval legends, now back in native hands.

With bush-trained vines more than 100 years old, ‘Tartaraci’ is a unique vineyard, covered in snow during winter and Mediterranean-hot in summer. Yet great wine is always made at the extremes—and it is here, at altitude, where Mirella crafts world-class red and white wines redolent of wild herbs and silky fruit, in micro-quantities.