Old school New England 92 - Scanorama

Midas touch: Marco
de Grazia’s Tenuta
delle Terre Nere
today produces
160,000 bottles
THE NEXT DAY WE SET OFF for Etna. From
Catania, a winding road leads up the eastern
approach. Off to our right the sea is
bathed in a glorious Mediterranean light.
In the fall sky above, almost 3,400 me ters
up, we can make out the vol cano’s cone.
From our vantage point, Etna looks far
from menacing except for the thin plume
of white smoke coming out of its crater.
But the volcano is biding its time. This
year there have already been 12 eruptions,
the last one a month before our
visit. While most eruptions don’t result
in lava threatening surrounding towns,
the tremors and ash clouds, which often
end up grounding flights at the nearby
airport, can be unsettling.
Deep down Sicilians are a fatalistic lot.
When it comes to Etna, which has been
active for 700,000 years, and the threat of
losing everything in a cataclysmic eruption,
locals seem to take it in their stride.
If it happens, it happens. So it’s no surprise
then that more than a fifth of islanders
decide to live in its shadow. Drawn by
its fertile soil, people work the land to cultivate
lemons, oranges, figs, olives, pistachios
and, of course, grapes.
THE DRIVE INTO WINE COUNTRY takes us
along the SS120 road, first used during Ro -
man times, to Linguaglossa, which serves
as base camp for wine enthusiasts visiting
Etna. The town has its fair share of aging
palazzos still trying to look dignified un -
der the harsh midday sun. Built over an
old lava stream, its main street is lined
with heavy, black lava cobblestones – an
upside to the volcano’s fiery fury is that lo -
cals can at least quarry rock from old lava
spills to build anew. Nearly every street
has a butcher shop advertising its wares,
no doubt doing brisk business thanks to
the need to supply choice meats to pair
with the region’s hearty reds.
We push on and pass a few sleepy villages
before reaching our destination:
Pas so pisciaro. Nestled at 600 meters, it
sits in the heart of the Etna wine region,
which is a couple of kilometers wide and
20km long. To an outsider the settlement
feels like something out of a Sergio Leone
spaghetti western. Weeds overrun a de -
serted soccer field and stray dogs have
free rein. Abandoned buildings still show
signs of bomb damage from World War II
when Allied troops passed through dur -
ing the liberation of the island from Mus -
so lini’s grip. On the main strip there’s lit -
tle sign of life save for a lone barbershop
and two poorly lit cafés patronized by
gray-haired men who pass the time gossiping
about the harvest. It has that air of
SCANORAMA DECEMBER 2011/JANUARY 2012 75
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