Description
Generazione Alessandro, Etna Rosso “Croceferro”
Make no mistake: we’re living through the Sicilian wine Revolution. As recently as the turn of the new millennium, the most notable feature of the island’s wine scene was the colossal volume of anonymous bulk wine it produced. Now, the pendulum has shifted to exquisite artisanship, and we get to experience reds like Generazione Alessandro’s “Croceferro,” an incredibly finessed, multi-layered Etna showstopper no Italophile can afford to overlook.
A bottle such as this reveals the undeniable greatness that’s possible on the slopes of the Etna volcano, clearly marking it as a top-tier contender in Italian wine, alongside the likes of Barolo and Brunello. Truly, Etna has established itself in the minds of collectors, critics, and sommeliers alike as Italy’s most exciting region, and we’ve got wines like “Croceferro” to thank for that. Yet a bottle this special remains a steal compared to its more famous compatriots to the north, at least for now. Sicily has arrived, and it can only go one direction from here: UP! Don’t let the opportunity slip away.
The qualitative upswing has swept across the whole of Sicily from charming, almost Pinot-like Frappato in Vittoria to vibrant dry whites in Marsala. But the most serious and profound wines come from Mount Etna. It’s a wild place where vineyards hug the side of an active volcano that last erupted in 2021. It’s in this forbidding landscape that the native Nerello Mascalese, an offspring of Tuscany’s Sangiovese, reaches its highest highs, metaphorically and literally. The bush vines of Nerello—many approaching a century in age—perch at 1,000 meters in elevation, making them some of the very highest in all of Europe. As a result, great Etna reds like “Croceferro” combine the warmth and power you’d expect from this warm climate with an energy, a Barolo-meets-Burgundy structure, you just don’t see in other southern Italian reds.
What’s more, the change here is taking place not at the hands of outside investors or globetrotting winemakers, but from passionate locals who’ve learned their homeland is a vinous paradise. Generazione Alessandro is the joint project of three cousins, the fourth generation of their family to tend vines and produce wine. After working together at the family winery in Palermo in western Sicily, the cousins struck out on their own to explore their home island’s most promising terroir. Now, they farm four contradas, the Sicilian version of the Burgundian climat, on Etna’s north face where the wines achieve an extra dimension of elegance thanks to the vineyards’ protection from excessive sun.
“Croceferro” is 100% Nerello Mascalese from the Alessandros’ four vineyards. Grapes are harvested by hand and de-stemmed in the cellar before an alcoholic fermentation in conical steel vats. A full year of aging occurs in a mixture of French tonneaux and stainless steel (30%) before bottling. The wine then rests six months before release.
This 2020 needs a 30-minute decant to really strut its stuff, after which it bursts forth from the glass with an intoxicating mix of red-berry lift and volcanic earth. The nose leads with a wash of fresh and dried red fruits like crushed raspberry, dried cherry, plum skin, and underripe strawberry that meld with black rock, leather, cigar box spice, and almost sanguine minerality. Rarely does the soil character come through so clearly as in great Etna Rosso like this, where the volcanic earth lends distinctly smoky aromatic intrigue. The palate is compact and structured with generous texture, mouth-coating tannin, and lifted acidity that’ll make this a heck of a dinnertime companion. It’ll also reward 2-3 years of cellaring. Anyone who finds themselves moved by a great bottle of Chianti or Barolo will find loads to love here, and anyone uncertain of southern Italy’s capacity for elegance owes it to themselves to grab a few bottles of “Croceferro.” Viva la revoluzione!
