2024 Salvo Foti – I Vigneri, Bianco Casselle Aurora, Mount Etna DOC Superiore, Sicily, Italy.
The latest Aurora Etna Bianco from Salvo Foti is a stunning mineral driven Carricante based white with excellent balance and purity, and I while I usually go on and on about his reds, this wine might be one of his best to date and sure to thill his fans and those that appreciate tension and stony details in their wines. I’ve been drinking and enjoying this Mount Etna rarity since the 2013 vintage, and each time I try this cool toned and crisply focused wine, I am even more impressed, it is up there with my favorite white Burgundies, coming from white ash, and sandy volcanic soils on the Eastern side of the largest active volcano in Europe, closer to Foti’s hometown of Catania. This brilliant golden hued and flinty/spicy wine, 90% Carricante and 10% Minella, a very rare local varietal, shows off loads of wet stone, along with a core of racy tangerine, lemon, wild peach and subtle tropical fruits, as well as crystalized ginger, white blossoms, saline and almond notes. There’s a low alcohol feel, bright intensity and an elegantly textured mouthfeel that all come together in the glass and make for a heightened experience and be sure to engage this wine with sea food, in particular grilled fish, prawns and or shell fish. Foti, along with his son’s Simone and Andrea craft this wine using whole-clusters that are direct pressed and left to settle for up to 30 hours before allowing a natural fermentation to happen, which lasts almost two weeks. The wine is then aged five months, on the fine lees in stainless steel tanks, to preserve freshness, transparency of terroir and retain vitality. Carricante is grown at high altitudes on Mount Etna and is a low PH and high acid grape that thrives here, usually seeing just around 12% natural alcohol and capturing its terroir to near perfection.
Salvo Foti, the Godfather of Mount Etna and the Nerello Mascalese grape, as I’ve said here before, crafts a tiny amount for his own label while being the Island’s hottest consultant and mentor, making wines for the likes of Gulfi, Benati and Biondi to name drop a few of his past and current clients, mostly using the indigenous Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio black grapes along with a smattering of Alicante (Grenache) and some almost unknown local grapes that have been here so long there isn’t any recorded names or enough vines to care about DNA testing! The farming is almost 100% organic and holistic with some elements of biodynamic principles, such as the ancient reverence to the lunar cycle. The project called I Vigneri (that Foti started) takes its name from an association that existed in the Etna region way back in 1435, the historic Maestranzi dei Vigneri, which was a group group of vineyard workers that greatly influenced the wine culture of the Mount Etna and the success of the wines in those times. Today, as I’ve banged on about many times before, I Vigneri is a partnership between Salvo Foti, other vine experts and local grape growers who bring their long experience, among these unique vines, to their work, both in the vineyard and the cellars, with the expressed purpose to make wines that show the inartistic soul of the place and highlight the harmony between man and nature, these are soulful and authentic wines, especially this Carricante based white, with the spirits of the past and present being clearly transmitted into the bottle. I know, I just wrote about Foti’s IGT Rosso, but I couldn’t not report on this Auroa in quick time, as it will sell out fast, I wanted people to know just how good this vintage is and get a chance to grab it before it disappears!
($48 Est.) 95 Points, grapelive