Altitudes vary from 300 meters to 1,300 meters. The slope can exceed 40%. The temperature difference during the day can even reach 18 degrees Celsius.
Land formed by the decomposition of different types of volcanic lava of different ages and various eruptive materials. That lava, in the form of ash, and volcanic boulders, called rippleddu in their dialect, fell from volcanoes.
The Etna region, an active volcano in eastern Sicily, is 3,340 meters high and more than 50 kilometers in diameter, and its conditions are so extreme from many points of view that they make viticulture a courageous and difficult act.
There is no mechanized planting and picking here. Everything is done by hand. Terraces are built, supported by dry lava walls, on which the vineyards are arranged to allow for the accumulation of sand.
Secondly, the vineyard work is mostly cultivated in the form of small trees, surrounded by chestnut tree poles, which help to push its growth system upwards, protecting it from rain, sunlight and even the volcano itself, like a Umbrella.
The planting density is 8,000 vines per hectare, so tractors cannot get in at all.
Viticulture on Etna is primitive, and it is human at the same time. The project of oenologist Salvo Foti, considered the guardian of viticulture on Mount Etna, started out of this belief.
Having been working in the wine world, he created a project called “I Vigneri”, and today has a wine protection society with 250,000 vines on the volcano, with a staff of about 30 people. Its concept comes from the “Master of Wine” ( La Maestranza dei Vigneri)” model.
Foday explains: “Viticulture on Mount Etna, is very specific to climate and soil science issues, in fact the diversity of local vines is so high that some are almost extinct. Over time, I already have a very mature system, and the failure of Etna cultivation a few years ago was because of the workers.
For example, planting vineyards, going up the volcano, building terraces. So I decided to restore a 600-year-old model. I was inspired to create an institution aimed at training real grape professionals and propose traditional and ancient viticultural techniques, mainly with manual processes”.
Biodiversity and variability are the main natural conditions of Mount Etna. In the Vigneri vineyards at an altitude of 1,300 meters, where winter temperatures can drop below zero and snow blankets the ground for weeks.
In summer, however, daytime temperatures can even reach as high as 18 degrees. The 8,000 existing vines come from at least 10 different varieties.
The winemaker said: “The native grape varieties that have been growing on Mount Etna, due to the extreme living conditions, the grape plants themselves are very tenacious, thus ensuring that the vineyard can survive over time.”
But it is already hovering on the brink of extinction, such as black Minnella (minnella nera), more well-known, such as white grape varieties: Carricante, Malvasia, Vesparola (visparola) and Grecanico (grecanico).
Red grape varieties such as l’alicante, nerello cappuccio and nerello mascalese.
“The latter is more of a beach type,” Foday said. “It likes the sun, the heat, and the extreme harshness.
In the context of this diversity and biodiversity, humans out of respect for territory and volcanoes And to intervene, as the Sicilians call Etna.
No concrete poles, never wire, only stakes and vines of Etna, which can be built even in seemingly impossible areas. This is not Heroism, which is a system of protecting the territory.
It is a way of adapting and respecting the environment. People are the architects of the quantity and quality of vineyard management and cultivation, which allows us to take better care of the land …it is also an investment in the territory itself.
When grapes are combined with quality skilled labor, what is produced returns to the land itself with a forward-looking mindset, even economically”.
