Tenuta delle Terre Nere

Common questions

• Where is Tenuta delle Terre Nere located? add remove
  The estate sits in Contrada Calderara, on the northern slope of Mount Etna in Randazzo, in the province of Catania, Sicily. The cellar stands at roughly 600 metres above sea level. From there the vineyards climb through nine named districts, reaching around 1,000 metres in Guardiola. In all they cover 111 acres, split across thirty plots.
• Who founded Tenuta delle Terre Nere? add remove
  Marc de Grazia founded it. He was a wine merchant who had already made his name as a négociant in Tuscany and Piedmont. He bought the original estate parcels in 2002, old Nerello Mascalese on Etna's northern flank, and made the first Terre Nere vintage that same year. He coined the 'Burgundy of the Mediterranean' framing for Etna. He also built the district-by-district bottling system that now defines the denomination. That practice was almost unheard of at the time.
• What wines does Tenuta delle Terre Nere produce? add remove
  The bottling map reads like a Burgundian climat list. There are three Etna DOC Classici wines. They are an Etna Bianco from Carricante and Catarratto, an Etna Rosato, and an Etna Rosso from Nerello Mascalese with a small share of Nerello Cappuccio. Above the Classici sit the Premier Cru bottlings, from Feudo di Mezzo, Moganazzi, Santo Spirito and Guardiola. Skurnik flags Guardiola as the highest red-grape vineyards in Europe. Then comes a Grand Cru from Calderara Sottana. That one includes a Pre-Phylloxera cuvée, from a vineyard older than 140 years.
• Is Tenuta delle Terre Nere organic? add remove
  Yes. The estate has been farmed organically since the first 2002 vintage. Cellar work is deliberately restrained too. Fermentations run on native yeasts, and the wines age in large used French oak rather than new small barrels. The point is to keep the character of each district intact.
• Can you visit Tenuta delle Terre Nere? add remove
  Yes, by appointment, all year round. Tasting flights and cellar visits are arranged at the Calderara cellar in Randazzo. They move through the Classico wines and the single-district bottlings. The team also runs longer professional sessions for trade and press. Bookings go through [email protected].
• What makes the Calderara Sottana Pre-Phylloxera cuvée special? add remove
  It comes from less than two and a half acres of ungrafted Nerello Mascalese in Calderara Sottana. The vines were planted before the phylloxera louse reached Etna in 1881, and they are now more than 140 years old. The parcel is named La Vigna di Don Peppino, after the farmer who tended it for almost seventy years. It sits on pure black volcanic soil, and the wine is treated as a single-vineyard expression of pre-phylloxera Etna red.