The New Wines of Mount Etna by Benjamin Spencer
$33.00
1 in stock
In The New Wines of Mount Etna, An Insider’s Guide to the History and Rebirth of a Wine Region, American wine expert Benjamin Spencer explores the practices, history, and joys of making wine on Europe’s largest active volcano.
1 in stock
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About The New Wines of Mount Etna by Benjamin Spencer
Everything about Mount Etna arrives in small measures. Frequent changes in topography, elevation, sunlight, wind, and soils influence the color, aromas, and flavors of a wine, but every neighbor also has an idea of how best to interpret the grapes, terrain, and vintage. This is part of what makes these volcanic wines so exciting. They often escape the crosshairs of precise definition.
Thirty years ago this wasn’t the case. Vineyards growing on the slopes of the volcano Mount Etna were nearly abandoned. Now there are more than one hundred estates making some of the finest wines in the world. This kind of rapid change doesn’t come easy. In The New Wines of Mount Etna, An Insider’s Guide to the History and Rebirth of a Wine Region, American wine expert Benjamin Spencer explores the practices, history, and joys of making wine on Europe’s largest active volcano.
About Benjamin Spencer
Benjamin Spencer is an American journalist, author, wine judge, and the founder of the Etna Wine School. He holds a Diploma of Wines and Spirits from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust and a writing degree from The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. He lives in Sicily.
From the Author
I never intended to live on a volcano. Where I grew up, in Upstate New York, it was generally accepted that volcanoes are dangerous places. But after ten years working in American kitchens and another decade as a winemaker in California, moving to a volcano on the sea sounded like paradise. I’ve spent the last seven years exploring the mountain, working as a consulting winemaker and educator. In that time I’ve come to discover exactly what it’s like to make wine where fire and water meet. There aren’t a lot of places in the world like Mount Etna. The volcano towers over the eastern coastline of Sicily, in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Though it stands 10,600 feet above sea level everything arrives in small measures. Frequent changes in topography, elevation, sunlight, wind, and soils influence the color, aromas, and flavors of a wine, but every neighbor also has an idea of how best to interpret the grapes, terrain, and vintage. This is part of what makes these volcanic wines exciting. They often escape the crosshairs of precise definition. So, What is Etna? Only one generation ago, the answers were dubious. Today, those charged with revitalizing Etna’s wine economy are the pioneers of a wild landscape and torchbearers of an ancient tradition. The New Wines of Mount Etna is part of her story.
