This is a tricky column. It’s still hot and humid where I am, which inclines me to tell you about some summer wines. But you won’t be reading this until just before Thanksgiving, which means something robust and cockle warming is in order. A fork in the road rises up before me. Which path should I take? Both! Why be an either-or sort of chap when both-and are available?
Let’s start in Sicily, on the slopes of Mount Etna, one of the world’s most active volcanoes and, as it happens, a splendid igneous spot for growing grapes, especially Nerello and Grenache. I split a bottle of the 2019 SRC Etna Rosso Crasà with a couple of serious thinkers and we were all delighted. The small family-owned winery lies a thousand windswept meters above the Mediterranean in eastern Sicily. It dates from only the mid-2010s but it features mature (80-year-old), low-yield vines and a patient hands-on winemaking style.

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