Sicily Beyond Etna: Covering the Other Corners of the Trinacria

Class Transcript:

Welcome, welcome, one and all. It is a pleasure to have everyone with us on this idyllic fall day. Thank you for resisting the clarion call of what is possibly the most beautiful September late afternoon you can conjure. I hope that at least some of you are enjoying this lesson outside. And for those of you like me that are inside, thank you for courageously avoiding the elements when otherwise they might call out to you. We are covering one of my favorite subjects, and that is Sicilian wine. Sicily is an island continent; it is the largest island in the Mediterranean. It has thousands of years worth of wine making history, and yet somehow it's been a long time since it's been a long time since it's been a long time since it has been a long time.

It has been an rapidement changing past, but its potential remains untapped. And somehow, the legions of Northern Italian visitors and international visitors make a racistly every year or comment on how beautiful, how idyllic this place is. But nonetheless, how much further it has to go for the sake of the continued development of its agricultural and wine scene. But I want to celebrate, you know, how far Sicily has come in a relatively small amount of time in the modern era and gone from, you know, a relatively impoverished backwater on the southern Mediterranean and truly become a world-class terroir for the sake of wine and not only wine, this just amazing front of, you know, food and drink culture. It is one of my favorite places that I have ever visited.

Sicily is, you know, demonstrably Italian, but also, you know, something else entirely. And Sicily is sufficiently large that from village to village, you know, each corner of the island has its own distinct set of traditions that are totally, totally unique. So in as much as it's impossible to say that there is one Italy, one of my favorite quotes about Italian unification is, you know, we have made Italy as a political entity now; that now all that remains is to make Italians. And it's very true with Sicilians. They identify as Sicilian first and Italian secondarily. And even within Sicily, I think, you know, people would identify by, you know, the village first, you know, be it, you know, Palermo in the western half of the island, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the north, you know, Syracuse, Catania to the east, you know, there is this like hyper localization that, you know, speaks to just, you know, the wealth of what Sicilians can eat out of the land there. And I remember being there, you know, from village to village, there's this hyper specialization for the sake of, you know, carrots in one village, lentils in another, cherry tomatoes in another, you know, particular type of cheese. Particular type of, you know, prickly pear cactus, you name it. And Sicily has always existed at the crossroads of civilization, the crossroads of the Mediterranean. And it has been a place where these various visitors over the centuries have bestowed their own gifts. And you see these various historical threads, you know, kind of perpetuated into the modern era for the sake of food and wine. And that's really what we want to celebrate.

So without further ado, welcome back. We have one, two, three, four bottles to open. We're going to kick it off with a busy wine from a pair of sisters. We were wonderfully, you know, kind of honored at the reception that Wine Club got this month. And our supply chains remain wonky in the wine world, suffice to say, we have relatively niche tastes. So that means that, you know, maintaining consistency for the sake of 50 plus wines is always a challenge. Thank you all for bearing with us. Most of you ended up in the same boat. And most of you ended up with a wine from Sekelle and some Paterno sisters. I don't have it. We gave away our last bottle. That's a Narodavola Fizz.

And we're going to kind of bookend this lesson with Narodavola, which is Sicily's noble red grape, most widely grown native red varietal. But I do have an orange wine. This is Gripacchi. This is a Gripacchi. This is a Gripacchi. This is an Arionico on the skins from the very same Paterno sisters. One or two of you might have ended up with modern rock star Arianna Occhi Pinti's Zabibo blend. But these are all interrelated grapes. And, you know, we're going to consider the broader history of Sicilian wine and Sicily across centuries through the lens of these wines. So, you know, having, you know, more data points will do us a good service. We're going to move into Suabuche from Valabella. So this is from the western part of the island.

Thereafter, and then we're going to close things out with Glorious Frapato, remains one of my favorite slammable light reds, perfect for summer drinking, but equally well-suited for any occasion in any season, and close things out with Riva Bar Naradabla, an estate near and dear to my heart that my wife and I had a chance to visit, the Padova family. I count myself an honorary Sicilian because Massimo, who runs the Roots there, made fun of how wildly I was gesticulating in talking about his wine, so I feel like if I was gesticulating too much for Sicilian, that makes me paisan, but at any rate, without further ado, a bit of verse for you all, as always, to kick things off. This is a verse from an Englishman.

He served in World War I before the English wrote a bit of verse. While he was stationed in Sicily, it is fittingly called 'In Sicily'. Because we too can never again come back on life's one forward track, never again first happily explore this valley of rocks and vines and orange trees, half biblical and half Hesperides, with dark blue seas calling from a shell-strewn shore, by the strange power of spring's resistless green, let us be true to what we have shared and seen, and as our amulet and this idol, save. And since the unturning day must die, let it forever be lit by an evening sky, and the wild myrtle grow upon its grave. That is Mr. Siegfried Sassoon for you. Phenomenal English name, Siegfried.

I feel like I wish there were more Siegfrieds in my life, but he is a published poet, served in World War I, and an outsider to Sicily, and it's fascinating. You see, throughout Sicily's history, all of these outsiders stumbling upon this island at the crossroads of civilization, and remarking on its singular beauty, and remarking on, you know, its singular fertility. And, you know, we are going to start with kind of like the first of many visitors for the sake of Sicily that have, you know, kind of imprinted their own cultural stamp on the island. And, you know, we are going to start with kind of like the first of many visitors for the sake of Sicily that have, you know, kind of imprinted their own cultural stamp on the island.

And I'm going to read to you from The Odyssey. So it's likely that, you know, there was no Homer. Homer's probably a creation, you know, in as much as Moses is a creation. You know, historically, you have the codification of Greek infant myths in Homer, most of which were written in or before the 8th century BCE. And Homer in the Odyssey talks about Odysseus stumbling upon Sicily. And, you know, I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. So Greek in Homer's time was the center of, you know, ancient civilization. And Sicily at that point in time was kind of at the edge of the Western world.

And it was supposed that the Cyclops resided in Mount Etna. We're not going to cover Etna's wines, but it figures large, looms large over the eastern half of the island in Sicilian mythology. And Homer says the Cyclops have no ships with crimson bows, no shipwrights who might fashion, pretty holes; the answer to the call that sail across to other people's towns that men might want to visit. And such artisans might well have built a proper place for men to settle. In fact, the land's not poor; it could yield fruit and season soft while watered meadows lie along the gray seashores on failing vines could flourish. It has level land for plowing, and every season would provide fat harvest because the undersoil is black indeed.

So the ancient Greeks, you know, they stumbled upon the idea of a land that was not poor. And so they built a land that was not poor. And so they stumbled upon this, you know, fertile, massive island. And it was inhabited at the time by the Sicils, an ancient tribe who gave their name to Sicily. But Homer's reflecting on the fact that the Sicils are, by Greek standards, and the Greeks are, by their own estimation, the most civilized race on the earth. The Sicils, the current inhabitants are, you know, barbarians, as it were. And so Homer himself, you know, is this monstrous barbarian, as a stand-in in Greek mythology, and he's supposed to have consumed wine unadulterated, which is a sign of his barbarity. The Greeks and the Romans watered down their wine.

But there's a sense, you know, even in the eighth century of this untapped potential of this land. And when the Greeks and these various Greek city-states descend upon Sicily, they establish, you know, their own colonies. Each Greek city-state has its own, builds its own colony, the most important ones being Syracuse, in the east, and Agrigento, in the south. And, you know, Greek ruins are scattered throughout the southeastern corner of the island to this day. And you see this push-pull between, you know, the Greek influence in the east and the Saracen influence in the west. But we'll get there later, for the sake of the Saracen influence. The Greeks, they bring with them, you know, centuries, centuries of learning for the sake of agriculture, for the sake of, you know, their own sense of culture.

But they build upon it in Sicily. And Sicily has many advantages in terms of its fertility that, you know, Athens, Sparta themselves do not necessarily enjoy. And so much of what we think about intrinsic to, you know, Greek culture actually, you know, developed in these Greek colonies in Sicily. So the symposium, you know, this idea of, you know, just kind of chilling, as it were, you know, this is old white men, old landed white men chilling. Nobody else had the luxury to chill as such. But symposium essentially just comes from this Greek root word that means drinking together. And that was centered around the wine trade. And the Greeks' wine making flourished in Sicily, along with production of olives and olive oil.

But the Greeks had so much spare time that they invented one of the world's great drinking games in Sicily. And you can see here, this is kind of a late, you know, kind of a more modern depiction of the great ancient Greek drinking game of katavos. Just kind of like the beer pong of their era. But they are flinging wine leaves. So the sediment left at the bottom of the barrel, at the bottom of their crater, which is their drinking vessel, they would fling at a target. And so they would fling at a target. And so they would fling at a target. And so they would fling at a target. And so they would fling at a target. And so they would fling at a target. And you have all these like fun etymologies too.

It should be said comedy itself comes from an ancient Greek root for wine leaves. So, comus wine leaves give us comedy. So, you know, you could definitely say there is no comedy without wine. And, you know, that feels very fitting to me. But, you know, you see this flourishing of ancient Greek civilization in Sicily. And that, you know, perpetuated through the second century BCE. And you have this flourishing of Greek epicurean like the greatest ships of their era drawn from Sicily. Some of the greatest philosophers of their era drawn from Sicily as well. And we are going to kind of explore our first wine for the sake of, you know, this kind of Greek cultural influence that is so important in Sicily and that comes to us from the paternal family.

So the kind of spice that is coming out here is the early age period. You know, this just has a father and two daughters. This is father, mother, and a singular daughter. And I don't know whether this is Marilina or Federica, but dad is Angelo Paterno. Dad has a very kind of common story for the sake of the modern Greek wine industry. He spends the bulk of his professional life, 25 years in winemaking, working for a larger cooperative. So a collection of Sicilian growers. And we'll talk about the cooperatives later as they pertain to the history of Sicilian wine. But in the modern era, he split off, did his own thing, devoted his life more to artisanal winemaking after 25 years. And in the modern era, his two daughters took up the roost, that's either Marilina or Federica.

I apologize to the Paterno family; I didn't sufficiently, you know, dig deep enough to determine who that was. But there is a third generation on the way, which is always heartening. They're fully organic for the sake of their viticulture. And it should be said that Sicily has so many advantages naturally. It is, you know, dry there; they like to drink a lot of wine. They like to drink a lot of wine. They like to drink a lot of wine. They like to say, 'You know,' it doesn't rain past February in Sicily, which is true in a lot of parts of the country where they only get, you know, at the most, you know, 15, 20 inches of rain in a year. But there are other parts, particularly in the north and east, closer to Etna, that are a little wetter. You know, they get, you know, upwards of 30, 40 inches of rain a year. So, you know, we're considering kind of the dryer corners of the country for the sake of the sun. So, you know, we're considering kind of the drier corners of the country for the sake of red wines, uh, said to have this like fragrance, you know, of violets and prunes as it ripens, uh, it works really well in sparkling wine, which most of you will have enjoyed from um, the Fraterno sisters, because it has racy acid, um, it retains its acid remarkably well as it ripens, and uh, acidity is an essential ingredient, uh, for the sake of sparkling wine, and what I love about uh, the Pet Nat, uh, that many are enjoying or even the Sakele, which is a Graciano, um, that stays on the skins for 13 hours, um, is that you know these wines are bright and racy, um, and they're festive and fun, and you know you're coming from a sun-kissed place for the sake of these individual varietals, but you're ending up, um, you know, and this is mostly for the sake of conscious choices by the winemakers because you know, uh, in the early, you know, modern era, you know, throughout the 20th century, a lot of people drank really flabby, um, you know, Sicilian bulk wine, and they didn't enjoy these more artisanal fresh lively offerings, but um, you know, Sicily has all the ingredients for small-scale artisanal production, um, this particular uh, fizzy wine made in the method and so straw which is to say one continuous Fermentation interrupted, bottled early to capture the last of that telltale fizz.

Um, huh? The narrow gavel grown on clay lumps, limestone soils which tends to prefer limestone allows these um, to maintain their acid. Clay um, kind of retains water in a way that's important in a very dry corner of uh, the Sicilian island. Um, huh? See for your sake Zoe, and uh, welcome as always, Zoe! The greatest most undercompensated um moderator in uh, the wine school game. I know you've worked with this wines before; I know you love the Fraterno sisters. What is so fresh and uh, you know fun and discerning, and I'm sure you've had a lot of fun. With this wine, I'm going to tell you a little bit more about this wine. Um, I think it's delicious; it's just like this, like kind of rotting raspberry in a wonderful, delightful way.

Love the racing acid and it's a little chunky and it's a little stanky, but I don't think it detracts from the palate at all. And it has like a little bit of like that sanguine, iron-minerality to it. Uh, and you have the bottle over your shoulder there so if you uh, nicely done! If you want to show yeah, remarkable and and uh, the dog uh, the animals making no appearance uh, today as of yet. Um, I love the adorable two sisters in the in the vineyard there um, you know. wine is uh very much a part of the culture of sicilian um you know kind of uh work a day life uh everybody makes you know wine everybody has an uncle um that has access to grapes and makes wine um you know again uh sicily our wine everywhere muchieg sporar but being a 산나는 este a wine vivre um uh it that doesn't not yet okay um i'm gonna scroll it back to uh the map here because uh geography hugely important uh for the sake of our sicilian wine tour um we uh started off with these uh with the bubbly and you can see here we're on um the southeastern corner of the island you've got avala namesake of the great narrow uh you have noto with This is just like stupidly beautiful, um, 17th century, um, kind of Byzantine, um, you know, white marble everywhere, uh, city, and then Pacino, uh, literally on the southeasternmost corner, um, Aleria is the designation of origin, uh, for wine, uh, throughout this zone, um, and uh, this is, um, a sun-kissed corner of Sicily, uh, Syracuse recorded, uh, the highest temperature ever recorded in the modern era, uh, this summer, um, in uh, um, in the EU, and uh, that's because you have these, uh, wild winds, uh, called the Sirocco, sweeping north off of the Sahara, um, and uh, they're unimpeded, um, across the Mediterranean and they whip, uh, Syracuse, and uh, you know this. is a zone that is uniquely vulnerable to global warming um because there is that you know um incredibly um you know kind of you know kind of very like desert uh like wind uh scorching the southern corner of sicily and there are no mountains really uh here to impede it um and it should be said that you know um it not just you know the the in terms of evolution of grapes um the hotter not always the better grapes will get sunburned just like people do and actually in these places people will spray grapes with um this white kind of talc powder um to act as a sunscreen for the grapes just like you know in an earlier area you saw goopy Um, you know tennis pros wearing you know that white talcum... um, uh, you know grapes will shut down um, their metabolism will stop; they will cease ripening uh, because they will uh, close off their pores to protect themselves um from uh, these you know 100 plus degree um temperatures in this corner of the world. Uh, they tend to though work with varietals that soak up the sun really beautifully. So Naradava's grape is a very late ripener um, and uh, it can't ripen everywhere on the island so if you try to take it for instance to Mount Etna, it doesn't flourish um, because it is uh, such a late ripener um, but uh in the southeast corner of the island.

it ripens uh really beautifully and makes um amazing lines while retaining uh this really gorgeous uh acid um now we're gonna flash forward and you know we've stopped at the end of the greek era uh for the sake of our tour of uh sicilian you know wine history and uh we're gonna kind of move into the roman and modern era so um uh second century uh romans enter the roost um they um you know kind of uh take over um from uh the etruscans uh in their own neck of the woods and then expand um and subsume uh what at that time was kind of still a greek colony in naples um and uh kind of expand further south into into sicily and sicily becomes The Roman granary, uh, which sounds like a great thing, you know?

It's just like agricultural heartland, but, um, the Romans aren't as forward-thinking as the Greeks for the sake of their land policies and for the sake of their mixed use of agricultural sediments, so, um, they are literally, you know, uh sucking the life out of these larger, um, kind of uh landed estates, and there's a lot of, um, kind of absentee landlordism, so, um, you know, you have this, you know, gentry that's partying in Rome or partying in Palermo, um, but they are leaving, um, kind of emissaries to do the work for them on, uh, their estates and these are huge estates. And, you know, there's a big difference between growing uh red germ wheat um which becomes the crop of choice uh throughout Sicily and growing grapes um grape growing um is as much more specialized um it requires much more expertise um you know whereas you just kind of throw a lot of bodies at grain uh for the sake of planning and threshing um and so that creates these conditions in which uh the Romans established this model for the sake of huge estates and um you know wildly impoverished local workers essentially circumventing that is perpetuated well into the 19th century and causes a lot of uh Sicily's kind of modern uh economic Ales for better or worse, um, flash forward, Roman Empire falls. Thanks, you know. The Vandals, Visigoths, you know (insert favorite Roman tribe here or favorite Germanic tribe here), um, they rule the roost for a little while in Sicily, um, but uh you know kind of exciting uh development in uh the ninth century, uh 878. Um, the Saracen, Saracen is this you know broader term I used to encompass all these uh Arabic um uh civilizations, successive Arabic civilizations that emerged out of North Africa and uh they take over a large part of uh southern Mediterranean throughout Europe, um, in Iberia, and they take over almost all of Sicily.

With the exception of the northeastern, uh, corner and um, you know the Saracens are a little more woke for the sake of their land policy, land policy, um, uh, they bring also all of these amazing agricultural gifts so we have the Saracens to thank for the Sicilian sweet tooth which is one of the world's greatest sweet chips, um, you think like uh cannoli, um, those like little pastries that look like boobs gelato citrus, you know, that is the Saracen influence, um, that is entirely um, you know, due to the Arabic uh influence there and on the land side, um, the um Saracens' tax, um, at a fixed annual rate, um, which the um nobles do not like because it forces them to actively utilize all their land in a more intensive way and they also make it easier for um smaller um uh kind of farmers um to earn a living and they also make it easier for them to work for themselves without working for you know um a larger estate um so you see this flourishing of you know god forbid a burgeoning middle class in sicily um under the saracens and uh their successors the normans um in uh into uh the 11th and 12th and and 13th century and uh the normans um you know uh from the 12th to the the 13th century you got roger the second frederick uh frederick second um you know you see this like flourishing of sicilian um the normans kind of uh they bring their empire from um you know its original base in in france to sicily and sicily is really the heart of their domain um and throughout 1200s 1300s um you know palermo in particular um really is one of the most highly evolved cities in the world period um you know cordova at that time is is really you know uh flourishing um and uh you know so sicily has this golden age um that it really has this golden age and it has this golden age and it has this yet to recapture um because uh the normans fall and then uh in the 13th mid-13th century and then really uh it's kind of like um you know sicily Becomes this hot potato, um, one of the sources I read called a geopolitical chattel, um, nobody really wants to be in that place, um, and so you have successive empires, the French, the Spanish, people on Tacy, the Austrians, the Bourbons, uh, that run the roost here, and they maintain, they reassert this model of land ownership that the Italians called latifundo, which is essentially, um, you know, circa, um, so you have a lot of people working the land in massive conglomerated states and, um, you know, few people owning any of it, and uh, a large, um, impoverished underclass, and so you see, you know, this kind of rotting from within, um, you know the sicilian agricultural landscape and that's something that you know kind of perpetuated through to the modern era uh one of the great uh literary works of all time um uh comes to us from uh giuseppe di lampedusa and he writes in the 20th century uh the book is called the leopard um there's a famous anthony quinn movie to that effect um but uh he writes about you know uh the squandering of um this uh sicilian uh potential um and you know he says in sicily it doesn't matter whether things are done well or done badly the sin which we sicilians never forgive is the sin which we sicilians never forgive is simply that of doing At all, and you know he talks about roses. You know, brought in from the continent that you know smell like cabbages and are rotting on the vine and you know all of this untapped potential that is essentially untapped because uh you know these uh you know landed uh Sicilian um you know aristocrats you know have poisoned uh the well um which brings us to uh innovation in the form of an English merchant in the 18th century named John Woodhouse, and that brings us to our second line um which is essentially uh derived from Marsala production so Marsala is a uh a city the western edge of Sicily um and the western part of Sicily um uh Bears this Saracen influence much more than Eastern edge, so the Western edge, very close to Tunisia, um it was where essentially, these Saracen conquerors culturally, it bears that influence more.

And you see that in the food. You know, it's couscous country for the sake of Sicilian dishes. You don't see that on the Greek side of the island. And for the sake of wine, John Woodhouse sees the same untapped potential, but he sees untapped potential for the sake of fortified wines. So the English merchants of his era, they are making a small fortune in sherry and port. And he says, you know, I'm going to essentially make sherry and port in this corner of the world. And he succeeds admirably. And Marsala, you know, benefits not only the English merchants working there, but the successive generations of Sicilian merchants that follow him. And he works with a variety of different grapes in this western corner of Sicily. He worked with Caterato, which we have represented here.

Caterato is the most widely grown grape period in Sicily into the modern era. It's a white varietal. And Marsala, equally derived from this grape called Grillo. Grillo is a local crossing of Caterato and Zabibo. Zabibo actually just means raisin in actually Arabic. And it's a synonym for Mascot of Alexandria, which is an ancient Mediterranean varietal. So these two naturally cross in the vineyard and you get Grillo. And that brings us to Sula Buche. It's an orange wine. It's a slightly challenging wine for the sake of its flavor, but it's a wine that's very, very good. And it's a very popular profile. But I really wanted to include it for the sake of this lesson because it has such a cool story for the sake of people who are making it.

So, you know, we went conventionally delicious for the sake of the Caterano sisters and that first Fizzinerra d'Alaba. This one is a more savory, vegetal, kind of nutty wine. It spends the better part of 12 days on the skins. Largely brought up in St. Louis. So you get that, you know, savoriness from the skin contact, but no overt oak influence on this wine. Now, Grillo is a grape that ripens readily in the Sicilian sun, but doesn't blister, doesn't sunburn, soaks up all that sun really beautifully without being compromised. Before I reveal this, you know, kind of the full story of, you know, this particular offering and the people that make it, you know, having compressed, you know, centuries.

So, you know, we're going to take a little bit of the history of Sicilian history into, you know, a mere soundbite, as I want to do. Zoe, do you have any questions from folks in the audience, or you yourself, about, you know, the evolution of the Sicilian wine scene from Greeks, Romans, Visigoths to Normans and into the modern era? A little less on the history, but we do have a question about the powder, the sunscreen powder that they put on grapes and how to rid it before you press the grapes. That's an excellent question. You know, #excellent questions. Yes, exactly. Bingo. You know, it reminds me of there's this you know old what was this Raptor Patrick Raptor was this great Aussie tennis pro He used to wear the you know that like I think it's like zinc oxide is the sun bleach I didn't know how they rid of the grapes I would imagine that as the grapes further develop it just kind of falls off You have to imagine in the life cycle of a vineyard there are a lot of sprays and no one is ever going through a vineyard kind of after the fact and you know watering down the grapes Water is usually the enemy particularly around harvest for the sake of your varietals You know, if everything is really, you know, drought-stressed, maybe you'll spray a little bit, or irrigate a little bit. But, you know, typically you're spraying, whether it's zinc oxide, or, you know, copper sulfite, which is a Bordeaux mixture, which prevents downy mildew, among other things. Or, you know, something more sinister for the sake of pesticides, herbicides.

You're going to spray that early enough so that it naturally kind of, you know, works its way off the grapes before they come in. So, I'm guessing that, you know, whether in Australia or Sicily, if they're working with, you know, that natural sunscreen, and it is inherently a natural product. That they are, you know, it's not like they're, you know, copper-toned baitings in the vineyards. They're working with it, you know, early enough that it'll work its way off the vines, as opposed to, you know, kind of insinuating itself into the final product. So, fine, fine question. And I, it's funny, like, it's a really widely used product in, throughout Australia, because they deal with these crazy heat spikes. And it's something that vintners, in particular, are really interested in.

And even places like Sicily, and even places like, you know, Germany, full of the north, are more actively interested in. Because you're seeing these crazy heat spikes in corners of the old world that haven't experienced them before. And then, you know, the flip side, for the sake of Sicily, is they've always, in, you know, the southern reaches and the western reaches of the country, you know, dealt with, you know, these drought conditions. So, what they do there, what they have done for centuries, is work with varietals that, you know, just are naturally well suited to that environment. And Grillo are really well suited to that environment. Naradaba are really well suited to that environment. Pappato, which we're going to get to, just soaks up the sun really well without suffering from those 100 plus degree days or 40 plus degree Celsius days, you know, and in the European system.

This is a really cool one, I think, in terms of the modern history of Sicily, because it, you know, really embodies a lot of different trends. So, we talked about, you know, the latifundos system. So, we talked about, you know, the latifendas system. That, you know, essentially assigned, you know, this huge, you know, the bulk of, you know, the Sicilian kind of agricultural class to serfdom for the better part of the centuries. That, you know, is slowly obliterated in the modern era after the unification of Italy, which happens in 1860. And actually, you know, the Sicilians have a lot to do with the Italian unification, because Garibaldi swept his way through Sicily on his way back up to Rome.

Uh, but um, uh, into the modern era, you know, kind of one of the antidotes, um, for this, you know, impoverishment uh that you know for centuries that was imposed upon you know this agricultural caste in Sicily was cooperatives. So, um, the Italian state promotes the grip of cooperatives. Cooperatives are just a, you know, um, a coming together of farmers, uh, in a growers' association essentially, um, either to market, so kind of like a strength in numbers thing to market their crops, um, to secure a price, um, to uh experience strength in numbers for the sake of making really shitty wine, typically, um, and usually it's really shitty wine because there's no incentive to, um, uh, really innovate for the sake of these cooperatives.

Usually you're chasing European subsidies, um, for the sake of, um, basically wine concentrate, or in into the 80s and 90s, you're chasing European subsidies for the sake of making wine that is destined for the still. So it gets like really cynical and gross, as things do when there's oceans of government money involved. But the cooperative, you know, at its heart, can be just like really pure, you know, kind of up from the bootstraps antidote to, you know, these centuries of subjugation. And this particular producer, Valavella, is a more woke modern cooperative founded in the late 90s. And they say themselves that the winning, well, this is, they say themselves that from the beginning, the cooperative has tried to unhinge cultural stratifications that in recent centuries have dominated Sicilian territory.

That is to restore the dignity of farmers promoting concrete actions against commercial and labor exploitation and fielding organic agricultural methods that focus on biodiversity and native crops. So, you know, these cooperatives, they may be, you know, they may be, you know, they may be, you know, very often after World War II, in particular, when chemical interventions, aggressive chemical interventions became available to them, you know, they utilize them, even though it's not necessary in Sicily, just to chase huge yields. But Valavella really wants to take the whole cooperative thing back to its pure poetic roots, founded in 1998. To do so, if you visit their website, which is cool as shit, they sell everything under the sun from like jams, jellies, oils, whatever, and they make really interesting wine.

They're doing so, it's like there's nothing, you know, in Sicily. So whenever you hit a typo to ride on the phone, go scratch your own children. The other thing that they really got involved in was in the Sassafras in travel. Well, they're really great columnists, and white scholars too, you know, and since this is so awesome what Żakarė and her colleagues have done. It's so fascinating, you know, the Jesters are from Studin. Blue-red grapes called Rubios, but typically you're dealing with white grapes in the bulk of styles there. So, this particular commune just south of Palermo isn't on the map, but it's in Montreal. Well, Montreal is the larger zone. And they make amazing wine, but it's really like a one-stop shopping for the sake of their agriculture and for the sake of the growers that join the something else that's super cool.

Obviously, La Cosa Nostra equally emerges out of the dysfunction of the Sicilian state in the modern era. So, La Cosa Nostra emerged out of these armed gangs. This is the mafia that we know and celebrate throughout contemporary American culture. But La Cosa Nostra emerged out of these armed gangs that were basically, hired by large landowners to enforce their will and basically keep the peasants at bay. So La Cosa Nostra arguably kind of emerged out of these tools of subjugation in Sicily. And that is something that this particular cooperative and other people, particularly in Western and Southern Sicily, where that influence predominates to this day, are anxious to do away with. So you can see on the back, you can see this back label here if you have this bottle, you'll see this simple which is Adu Pitsu.

So the Pitsu is basically tributes. So it's tribute that you pay to your La Cosa Nostra entity, as protection money, and Adu Pitsu is a essentially an association of consumer organizations and merchants in Sicily that were fused onto thisед that refused to pay pinch bags and сок passage. pay tribute. Um, and that does not always make their life easy. Um, I knew it for a fact that Valdivello, you know, was looking to, uh, build their own winery and, uh, consistent with the whole Adiupizu program, wanted to do so without you using, you know, mafia labor. Um, good luck with that, you know, finding a, you know, a, a non, you know, mafia, um, you know, kind of implicated, uh, contractor, um, you know, just outside of Palermo. Uh, but they persisted.

It took longer to build their winery than they would have liked, but, you know, they are committed to doing things a different way and committed to doing things in a way that they feel like drives the island forward. And, you know, the whole notion of making wine on the skins here certainly is not novel at all. You know, it's something that has existed since antiquity, but there's no particularly long tradition of doing so in Sicily. Um, uh, it should be said, you know, unlike, you know, Georgia or, you know, parts of Northern Italy and Slovenia, it's not like there's unbroken lineage of aging wine on the skins in Sicily that emerged, you know, intact into the modern era. Uh, that's less the case, but you do have a lot of Sicilian producers wanting to work in that style.

And, uh, Grillo is a grape that in Marsala has more oxidative tendency. And I think in this wine, you know, takes that on. People talk about Grillo having this like lovely nuttiness, um, in, uh, these kinds of finished product wines and, and people talk about enjoying that, you know, when it exists in Marsala. Um, and Marsala can be really good. It should be said, if you ever, you know, track down deeper, totally, um, Marsala, um, uh, you know, they're, they're, you know, very niche market, um, even more niche than Madeira. Um, but, uh, they are great wines. They can be great dry wines. Um, uh, they can be great appetizers. Um, but, uh, neither here nor there, uh, Grillo, you know, when it gets on the skins, it does have this like almond skin nuttiness, um, to it, um, that I think is, is super fun and, uh, definitely emerging for the sake of, uh, Sula Buche.

Um, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, um, Sula Buche itself, meaning on the skins, uh, even if it's not, you know, quite as, you know, immediately, um, and approachably delicious, um, as, you know, this wine might be, um, in its unskin, in its kind of non-skin contact form. And, uh, it should be said too, there are a lot of producers working with Grillo as a non-skin contact wine, and it makes really beautiful, um, kind of fleshy full body on non-skin contact wines that I, uh, equally, uh, adore. Um, so any questions about, uh, Adiupitsu, um, or, uh, any other, um, uh, topic that I, uh, addressed, um, over the course of, of, you know, my Val di Bella ramblings? We love it.

Um, a little bit of, um, questions about microclimates within Sicily specifically. If you could go on between Aloro and Etna, for example, in comparison, something that we're all a little more familiar with, Yeah, just to revisit the map. So, uh, we were just in Montreal, uh, probably, you know, I, I pronounced it in the French, probably Monreale, Monreale. Um, uh, so, uh, opposite sides of, of the island here, I think climatically, um, you know, kind of comparable positions. Um, the, uh, Apennine mountains that stretch their way, uh, from north to south in Italy kind of take a turn and ultimately work their way into Tunisia, um, and Morocco. So, um, uh, the Nebrodi range is a part of them.

Uh, Nebrodi range is just north of Etna and snakes its way from kind of, uh, um, uh, east to west, um, across Northern Sicily. So it's just a very mountainous, uh, island. Uh, but you have these valleys, um, that define, uh, Sicily equally. Um, you see, uh, the Val di Noto, um, to, uh, the, uh, the east here. Uh, it's the Val di Mazzara, Mazzara, uh, in the, in the west. Um, and, uh, they are very hot and dry, almost uniformly. Uh, you'll, you'll see, uh, less rain, uh, there than elsewhere in Sicily. Um, as you, although, um, on the coast, um, uh, it tends to be cooler than it is inland, um, without exception. Um, as you move toward Etna and move upward in elevation, things get significantly cooler.

I can remember being on Etna in August and needing a jacket, uh, to, uh, I was actually reading a leopard at the time. Um, uh, you know, when I, uh, went up outside to read at twilight, um, it also, um, gets, uh, wetter there, um, because, uh, the, uh, mountain itself attracts rain, um, attracts clouds, you know, that give, give moisture. So I would say broadly, you know, the southern, uh, expanse of the island, uh, particularly the zone, um, uh, here around, uh, Vitoria, uh, very hot and dry. Um, the northern part sees a little more rain, uh, is a little cooler. Um, they grow grapes everywhere. Ultimately, it just kind of impacts the style of wine, uh, that you can, um, ultimately, uh, expect, uh, to come, um, out of your particular kind of subclimate and then, um, equally, you know, uh, the kind of crops you work with.

So, um, you know, there's kind of like one continuous harvest throughout Sicily, um, from, you know, July through the end of November. Um, it said that it has one of the largest kind of windows for harvest, you know, in late July, you'll see people harvesting Chardonnay in the middle of the island. And then, um, harvest, harvest won't wrap up, um, in, uh, Aetna until late November for the sake of Norella Moschelesi there. So this is great, um, you know, kind of, uh, expanse, um, and, uh, Sicily allows for that, um, in this, you know, really amazing, um, and unique, uh, kind of way. Um, our favorite topic, can you talk about, um, climate change in Sicily and if they are using different grapes or if the grapes that are known in Sicily have always been heat resistant, so they've had to, um, you know, work with these conditions that, um, bring these kind of North African winds their way.

And they've had to work in a hot, dry climate, um, for, you know, time immemorial in Sicily. So they tend to work with a lot of grapes that are, um, uh, drought-resistant and soak up the summer sun really well. Um, you could only do so much of that. So, um, and, uh, they are uniquely vulnerable, um, in, uh, you know, these, uh, kind of corners of the island that are already hot and already dry to climate change, because, you know, you have this whole Saharanification of Africa, um, North Africa that is happening. And as those regions become hotter and drier, you know, as that zone expands throughout Africa, you know, it ultimately infringes upon the Southern Mediterranean, um, on the continent.

So, uh, you only can, you know, um, make wine grapes for so long until you get into, um, you know, until you approach conditions that only allow for raisins and table grapes. Um, so throughout the Southern Mediterranean, um, maybe a little less so in Sicily because there is so much topography, you know, you can, you can always go up, um, and, uh, you know, Sicily, uh, you know, there is some drought pressure, but because there is that topography, there's a little more rain there than it is in, in some other parts of, of, of, uh, the Southern Mediterranean, you know, there are maybe a little less vulnerable in areas, but, uh, still very vulnerable. Um, and so flash forward a century, you know, a lot of places that are making wine, um, in Sicily today, um, you know, probably will only be able to make raisins or, you know, um, you know, the land will have to be irrigated in a way that's not sustainable or just not possible.

Um, so it's, it's a huge concern, um, for forward-thinking growers, uh, in that corner of the world. Um, uh, and, uh, that's a good segway though, for the sake of our next wine, which is a Frappato, um, which I equally adore and Frappato is kind of fascinating. It makes these, um, you know, lighter, um, really kind of, you know, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, and kind of pretty, floral wines, uh, yeah, it, uh, ripens actually, um, two weeks later, um, uh, very often than near Gabala, um, and it produces these pretty floral wines. This is Paolo Colli, uh, Paolo is a pharmacist turned wine maker. His family has owned wine for generations upon generations. He was gifted a baglio, um, which is a Sicilian term for fortified farmhouse.

So he's gifted, you know, like 30, you know, 30 acre plus fortified farmhouse in Sicily. I'm still waiting for my Sicilian farmhouse, mom and dad. I don't know if it's coming, if it's not coming, you know, I've got my fingers crossed at any rate. But Paolo, you know, decided the pharmacy game wasn't for him. And he doubled down on viticulture, beginning in 2001. And he's in this zone in Vitoria that works really beautifully for this great perpato. Perpato really likes these sandier soils. It really likes this kind of red sand in particular. And it likes this, you know, kind of sandier soil which soaks up the sun and is essentially shedding water more so than Naradava. Naradava tends to like more clay-heavy soils. And this is Naradava on the vine.

You can see it's kind of a lighter color. I adore perpato. I kind of, you know, liken it to like, you know, Sicily's Gamay. Super aromatic, super dusty. It has this glorious, you know, kind of strawberry root inflection to it. Typically, the reds in Sicily, because the anthocyanins are so fully developed, need a little less time on the skins to get fully red. So, you know, for the sake of the Naradavas, for the sake of the perpatos, you're only giving them like a week at most on the skins. Whereas, you know, in regions that are cooler for the sake of the reds, typically see like two weeks on the skins. This one's called Mandragola, which means mandrake, which is, you know, kind of an ancient folk remedy, which, you know, should appeal to a, and, you know, follow very much into the alchemy of wine.

So this, you know, magical transformation of water into wine, such as it were. And, you know, I think there's something like really joyous and magical in this, in this bottle. I didn't have a chance to, uh, visit, uh, Palo. Um, uh, when I was in Vittoria, I visited Coast, a different estate. Um, I'll pull up, uh, the map again, uh, to, to reorient you. Uh, you are west of, um, Aloro, which is where we were earlier, uh, just outside of Vittoria. Um, it is, it is famous for this wine called Cerasuolo di Vittoria, um, which is a DOCG, which is the kind of, uh, most highly regulated, um, kind of the top of the Italian kind of wine regulation scheme. Uh, by law, it blends Frappato and Erdabla.

Uh, this is a single varietal, uh, example of Frappato, uh, because I think Frappato is just, you know, kind of fresh and fun on its own and doesn't really need a more serious grape as I think, you know, people get into Cerasuolo because they feel like Frappato needs this, like, you know, uh, fleshing out or needs more structure or whatever. And I say, let Frappato be Frappato. It's fucking delicious the way it is. Um, and I think this is proof of concept, uh, such as it is. Um, uh, but, um, you know, it is one of my favorite summary wines, one of my favorite food wines. Um, I think, you know, there's just something perfect about this that I would never want to change.

Um, you know, especially at like, you know, $27 dollars, um, you know, uh, retail. Uh, so, um, any thoughts about the Frappato? Thoughts about pharmacists turned winemakers? Thoughts about, uh, the fact that I was never gifted my Valio? I'm not going to go on to what you have and have not been gifted. I'm going to leave that to Bill and Patty. Um, um, in terms of, um, sorry, I left my thought. Um, the first time that I had the Palo Polly was actually with, um, a dish at Tail of Goat with the burnt bread sauce. And I just remember, um, it being so delicious with that like nitty and gritty, um, sauce, but having like such great, like acid in that dish as well.

It was like such a beautiful, um, wine that was able to pair with like so many different things. Um, kind of like a Gatame plus a Cab Franc and was how I like remembered putting it in my head the first times that I've had it. And it was just so gorgeous. I don't think we have any more questions. Yeah. I mean, I really adore the quality of fruit on this wine. Um, you know, uh, you know, there's something, you know, kind of like a dusty, uh, and savory about it, but, you know, the quality fruit goes in this like really juicy kind of like, you know, strawberry plum, uh, direction that is just joyful, uh, for me for pot. It's just one of those wines that always makes me smile.

Um, you know, uh, it's just, you know, it's just, you know, festive, you know, fun, fun juice. Um, I, I need to, I need to figure out what the etymology for probato is, but I feel like it, it feels very close to frappe. Uh, it must be the same Latin roots. Um, but, uh, you know, something about that, it just sounds, you know, the word itself sounds fun. Damn it. Um, you know, how, how can the wine not, you know, kind of follow suit? Um, right. So we're going to kind of come full circle here, um, for, uh, the sake of our Sicilian journey, uh, across the Trinicaria. Um, that's a, Trinicaria is a nickname for, the island refers to, uh, the fact that it's, you know, tri-cornered.

Um, uh, and, uh, working our way back to Naradaba, um, and, uh, moving on to, um, kind of a, a really cool, um, family-owned property. Um, uh, for the sake of this particular wine, uh, you're dealing with a brother-sister team, uh, went into business with their cousin, um, and, uh, make really fabulous wine. Um, the Padova family, uh, this is Massimo Padova. Um, really amazing, amazing soul patch here, like world-class soul patch. Um, uh, the mustache, you know, is, you know, I'll give it like a triple A mustache, but like world-class mustache on Massimo Padova. Um, I had a chance to meet, uh, Massimo. I was always already kind of one tasting deep, um, at the, at the time, uh, we visited him, um, and I was very excited about the wines and gesticulating wildly.

And he thought that was hilarious. Um, lovely dude. Um, uh, he makes matter-of-factly delicious wines. Um, he, uh, they work organically. Um, I really adore his, uh, dessert wine, uh, incidentally. Uh, but you have before you, um, kind of his entry level Narodavola. Um, it is, uh, called Spacoporno, uh, which comes from the old Latin name, uh, for the village near them, which is Spica. And, uh, Spica is famous for its carrots, um, which I always thought was like, the most amazing thing ever. So, um, in, uh, in a Spica, they have a protected designation of origin for their carrots, you know, so I, that, that appealed to me when I first found it out, you know, so the, the viticulture, the agriculture, you know, uh, instancy is so highly evolved, um, that, you know, carrots, you know, are, uh, protected by law.

You know, the carrots are so special, uh, that they are, are protected by law. You know, that, that seems like a minor miracle. Uh, at any rate, I didn't get a chance to try any of Spica carrots, uh, while I was there, uh, but, uh, I did try this particular wine. It should be said we're just outside of Noto, uh, which I can't recommend, uh, uh, more highly enough, um, as a vacation destination. Uh, Noto, um, in addition to being, um, a UNESCO World Heritage Site is famous for its gelato. Um, the Sicilians like to make gelato at breakfast. Um, they're traditional to eat like a bread bowl of gelato and brioche. Um, it should be said that, um, you know, coming off my initial, uh, winery visit, visiting Rio Pavar, I had started the day, uh, with a bread bowl of gelato.

So, you know, it was, it was quite a culinary, uh, tour for me. And, um, you know, as my wife said, I was definitely wearing my bad idea jeans, but I was very excited about it. Um, uh, and, um, I won't recommend gelato as a breakfast as such, but I will wholeheartedly, uh, endorse the gelatos of Noto, uh, and particularly the pistachio, which is just really world-class. Um, I really like about Nero, um, a double of that. Um, it has this kind of pruney of the earth kind of chewiness to it. Um, uh, this particular wine is aged in a combination of second and third pass oak, French oak, uh, for six months, mostly um, uh, second pass, which is to say that the oak is not entirely neutral.

You have to get to four or five passes, um, sometimes even more than that for the sake of white grapes before, um, you get into, uh, oak that is just an oxidative vessel. And, uh, that is kind of, um, uh, exuding, uh, less of its flavor as such into the wine. Uh, but, uh, for the sake of this particular offering, um, uh, texturally, um, you know, it kind of softens, uh, you know, some of that raging acid, uh, that Nero brings to the table. And, you know, to my mind, you know, again, you know, this is something that, you know, is, uh, in that $20 realm, it's just a perfect bistro wine. Um, you know, it's, it's something you just want to eat with meat off the grill with, you know, some kind of like party, uh, Sicilian pasta, you know, they say in Sicily, like cucina povera.

So, you know, uh, these wonderful dishes that come out of brutality, you know, this, um, you know, uh, you know, peasant, uh, innovation for the sake of using the whole animal, um, you know, foraging for wild greens, scouring the landscape for everything that has to offer. Um, you know, I feel like this is a wine that, you know, the, uh, the best of Sicily, uh, to my mind, as a Jew with, you know, kind of that, you know, making lemonade out of lemons, uh, for this particular one. Uh, any thoughts about the Nero d'Avola or about any of these other offerings? So, um, a lot of immediate anxiety about how chunky the pet gnat was. Um, but I think it's flavors and the fact that that like stinkiness blows off after a bit, um, makes it still really delicious.

Someone said savory lemonade, which I thought was a great choice. Um, but please, uh, send out your tasting notes for any of these red wines or even the Caterato. Um, I do have a quick question though about, um, the movement of natural wine to Sicily, where it feels like Sicily needs intervention more than any other region in Italy. I find it interesting that there has been like such a focus on natural wine. Um, and I think it's without kind of thinking about what will be the future of Sicily in the next 20 years.

So, it's funny you should bring that up, uh, so, and I should say, you know, just about the penalty, uh, I did get, you know, prior to this lesson, I should have prepared people for as much of my notes about the wine, you know, a few missives, you know, what's floating in my wine, what's the deal, you know, with this, uh, pet gnat. Um, it should be said that, um, the wine is drinking un-fined, unfiltered, um, and, You know, that's part of its joy. And it is less a sparkling wine in the delicate, you know, pale pink, you know, champagne sense of the word than something that's a little heartier and more Lambrusco adjacent. But we love that about it. You know, I think Sicily is this really fertile ground for the natural wine movement.

So, you know, natural wine was the movement, you know, like there's like natural wine, low caps, you know, just like, you know, in political theory, there's democratic, you know, in lower caps where you believe in free and fair elections, which makes it impossible to be a Republican at this point in time. But at any rate, you believe in, you know, free and fair elections as a guiding force for, you know, a republic. And then there's like democratic big caps for the sake of a political party. You know, for natural wine, there's natural wine, lower caps. Which to my mind is, you know, wine made, you know, in, you know, with an abiding respect for, you know, a local environment that speaks to a sense of place that doesn't contribute to human misery.

And then there's like natural wine in caps and the natural wine movement, which is this, you know, kind of reaction to the aggressive manipulation of wine that emerges out of World War II. And that reaction, you know, results in winemakers bucking the norm for the sake of this European bureaucracy that protects this industry that's based around bulk wine. And, you know, wanting to produce wines in a more transparent way, being open and honest with what we're adding to the wines. Being, you know, more conscious of what we're doing to the land when we do it. And being, you know, kind of more conscious of what we add to the wine at the end of the day. But, you know, there's this whole kind of branding that comes with that.

You know, this whole sense of irreverence that's wanting to, you know, make wine something that's fun again. Make wine something that feels like an agricultural product again as opposed to something that's reserved for the elite. And Sicilian wine is all about that. Sicilian wine, you know, wine is part of the fabric of the table. Wine is mother's milk. You know, wine that occasionally has shit floating into it. And yes, it's weird for us, as modern consumers, to purchase that. But, you know, there's nothing in vain about it. inherently, you know, dangerous about that or wrong with that. You know, the hope is that, you know, we are broadening the universe. You know, we're drinking wine in technicolor, as opposed to drinking these sterile filtered things that we have come to appreciate as wine in the modern era.

And, you know, Sicily is fertile ground for the all caps natural wine movement because it is very easy to grow grapes there. You know, it is relatively hot, it's dry, there's not a lot of disease pressure. It's very easy to work organically. You know, it's cartoonishly beautiful. There's a lot of natural source material to work with for the sake of grapes like Grillo, Rapato, Narodavola. You know, there's this wealth of tradition that we are just now, you know, coming to reappreciate. So I think that's one of the reasons why Sicily has become fertile ground for the natural wine movement. Equally, it should be said, you know, Sicily's kind of reopening kind of coincided with the natural wine movement.

So the natural wine movement gained strength, you know, really with, you know, kind of, you know, champions in France, in particular, in Beaujolais, in the Loire, you know, that comes about in the 90s, into the early noughts, you know, for the sake of other champions like Alice Fearing, and, you know, the whole like wine fair thing, you know, that that's a relatively new phenomenon. That's like, you know, late 90s into the early aughts. That coincides with a period of political kind of stability in Sicily. So, you know, from the late 70s and early 90s, Sicily is wracked by mafia wars. And there are no real winners. There's this great quote that comes out of the Mafia Wars that, you know, the winning and losing clans don't exist because the losers don't exist.

So, you know, nobody wins. For the sake of this bloodshed. And actually, it should be said, you know, the Sicilian mafia, the Cosa Nostra is very much alive and well, but they've lost international standing to the 'Ndrangheta. I find the mafia very fascinating, but they lost international standing among organized crime versus Camorra in Naples. And then to the 'Ndrangheta, they live in Calabria, and they're like even way more hardcore than the Cosa Nostra. And then they've lost, you know, you know, they've lost power for the sake of these like various like Latin American cartels and shit like that. So Sicily got more stable politically than it has been before. And that allows smaller producers to emerge in the market.

And also cooperatives that define the market become less profitable because other people do cheap wine better than, you know, these same cooperatives that are slow to innovate. So for all those reasons, though, like it's this amazing, you know, kind of, you know, fertile ground for these, you know, more enterprising, small-scale producers. And those are the producers we feature today. So this is kind of like second, third wave Sicilian wine that we're featuring today. And for me, that's the most exciting, you know, kind of source of Sicilian wine in the modern era. And, you know, you have all this fatalism for the sake of Sicilians. You have, you know, you know, the sense that we live in this paradise on earth, but we can't help but get in our own way.

I love that, you know, the Sicilian wine industry is more vibrant than it has been in centuries, you know, since it has been since like the Norman era, arguably. And, you know, there's a sense of hope that comes with it for me. And, you know, I certainly take comfort in the fact that, you know, this region that for centuries has, you know, been defined by this, you know, opportunity loss is suddenly, you know, once again, being defined by this incredible potential. So let's drink to that before I tackle questions. It's a pleasure to have you all with us. So to fulfilling our own potential, be it wine or otherwise, I love you all. Salute. Or cendanis, as the Sicilians would say, alone together.

Additional questions, though, what do you got? I feel like I'm just warming up. I feel like sometimes I just kind of start to hit my lyrical stride as the lesson wraps up. No worries. No worries. Could it be because of the amount of wine? You could, it could be a direct correlation. Yeah, yeah, I think future internet, you know, trolls, scholars will come up with some kind of like way to graph that. There is a diminishing rate of turns at some points, Zoe. But yes, there could be some correlation there. It's very similar to something called like an alcohol parabola when you're speaking a different language that like, yeah, I'm really good at Italian. And then, you know, several glasses of wine, and I just no communication as possible. Yeah.

Anyway, moving forward, great questions. I'm wondering between the carrots and the grapes, etc. What percentage of Sicily is agricultural as opposed to being developed urbanly? Well, that isn't. Yeah, that's, that's above my create about my pay grades. Oh, I didn't. I did not research that. Um, there was a question about how densely populated. Was as well and how that uh so historically, yeah, historically the population centers were always along the coast, um you know, southern Italy as a whole tends not to be as densely populated as northern Italy, um you know I beyond that I couldn't give you hard and fast data, um the kind of most sparsely populated region of Italy is actually in the Alps, is the Val d'Asta, um that much I do know but like that's kind of a a wild card because you know so much of that um terrain is just like inherently uninhabitable because it's you know precipitously uh steep, um I'm going to guess that Sicily is you know um among the um more sparsely inhabited you know kind of domains within Italy but not the most sparsely inhabited, um uh there is a land grab in Italy now um so there is this there's historically in Italy there's always this tension between northern Italians and southern Italians, um I will say for my part like um you know having been to Sicily visited Sicily, um in terms Of tourism, you'll see more northern Italian tourists to Sicily than any other kind of tourists.

You'll see Germans everywhere; there are always Germans. Germans will go everywhere; Germans will get up early and you know claim place at the pool. Germans are fearless. Um, you'll see the occasional English, they're always tacky; they don't get to the pool early. Um, but uh northern Italians... They were more predominant than any other um, you know, tourism group. And I think for them it's like a vacation, you know? It's like a vacation in the south. But historically there's always this tension between the impoverished south and The kind of, uh, wealthier Northerners and you see this land grab, uh, Northern Italians buying up land in Sicily because it's, uh, land there is much more affordable, um, than has been historically. You see a lot of that on Etna, um, there's certainly some resentment, uh, for that sake.

Um, Marco de Grazia being a chief example, you know. Philosophical beef, um, uh, you know he has Tenuto del Terranera on Sicily which makes good wine but he throws too much new oak at them, um, and you know he kind of, I don't know, he bemoans some of the other local producers, I like when at all possible, you know, I want to root for the local underdog, um, and I believe that, for the Sake of same wines, um, you know it's  all the wines we tasted today are from people that are honest to God, Sicilian. You'll see some like migration within Sicily, so um, one of my favorite producers, Opera Grachi, um, he's from Sicily but he's not from Etna, but he makes wine in Etna today, um, but you know there's this like cultural tension, uh, between the north and the south that I don't think people fully understand, um, and it's just like Italy in general, it's just not, not one country, um, you know it's like a bunch of countries kind of coexisting. Maybe not as unhappily as, like, you know Flanders and Wallonia exist in Belgium, but you know still there's tension there um all which is to say on the question of population density I don't know but I'm guessing less dense to your point about the division between north and south um Italy it's it's really insane just how in modern times that division is still there um but it is really interesting that many Sicilians, to me like, don't even um identify as being from southern Italy like there's something else like yeah there's this tension and they're like we're of our own kind like we are not Julia you cannot put us into that. Boat and that um, but anywhere you are in Italy, you know you're a lot so you're from Lazio first and you're from Italy second, you know. Well, yeah, and I think, I think, in Sicily, in particular, something that is a defining distinction is, you know, this the Saracen influence.

So um, you know, parts of southern Italy are really defined by historically their Greek influence, so Naples is as much, you know, a historically Greek city as it is, you know, certainly Roman. You know, you definitely get that in Pula and in uh Calabria, Basilica is weird, it's kind of like, cave people but um, uh, in Sicily, you know, that that Arabic influence. know is is really defining cultural influence um and i think it's something that historically like made a lot of really uncomfortable you know um i think that whole notion of you know being you know coexisting with these like non-christian peoples per century is this like historical taboo that people still aren't over like a millennium later um you know i always find that fascinating but it's it's a defining feature you know for sake of sicilian cuisine um and for sicilian culture um and perfectly in palermo because you know uh syracusa very much you know um you know kind of greco-roman like architecturally culturally you know still like there's that you know um really strong you know kind of saracen influence in in you know in a pure um way and and and there's not really you know certainly that exists in in spain um about a quarter of spanish language is derived from arabic um uh but you know in italy um uh there was a little bit less of that um uh but it's very much alive and well um in sicily and just leaves this amazing melting pot um you know that's kind of it's a cool you know thing about islands is that you know they're both melting pots and refuges so you know they both bear the traces of you know all of you know uh these people that come together You know, like the Star Wars bar, but you know equally, they have their own you know kind of unique traditions and, you know, I think there's something really special about that.

It's interesting that it's been that way for so many hundreds, thousands of years um with the speaking world, and how they intended to assist to provide extra comfort and comfort this out, and you know, and sort of explain the origin of the different languages for street signs um, where it's like in Latin, it's in Greek, it's in Arabic, um, which I found so interesting. I'm going to punt this other question to you, um, I think that it's punny, but I'm not actually. sure been um uh shipped to france um either as like really coarse kind of um uh wine or or um wine that was essentially um cooked into this like great concentrate and you're talking like 10 20 percent of the wine that goes into that um uh um but um uh historically um that was all sicilian in the modern era um through the sake of technological innovation cheaply um the northern italians have usurped uh the southerns for the sake of bulk wine so uh the veneto and frioli uh uh turn out more wine um uh one and two than any other province in italy um the uh sicilians are number three place um uh in the modern era but that is a distinctly Modern um phenomenon and uh we have Dino Grigio uh to thank for that, largely do we have it to thank?

Do we have one, I'm just being we're being snarky. Do we have to thank? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know, I don't know, I mean like there is yes it's easy to be cynical about like bulk wine but by the same token like there's like kind of a modern miracle for the sake of the quality of like the swill that we drink. By the leader is better than you know leader swill has ever been um and yeah, I think it's it's worth pausing um you know just for sake of level technological innovation that it takes to make good swill, there's like a bartending slogan like Vodka pays the bills, like I feel like you know Grigio pays the bills.

It's like a really good sum comparison to that, totally it should be said too, that like Sicily um as a modern entity is positive that you don't have to pay a lot for good wine, so you know, yes if you're if you're you know in a desperate moment uh for whatever reason and you only want to pay ten dollars for a bottle of wine, it's really hard it's desperately in a retail outlet to find a ten dollar bottle of wine um that doesn't contribute to human misery and or isn't so heavily manipulated that's essentially an alcoholic soft drink um but um once you get into that $15 To the 20-25 dollar price point, like amazing things happen there, and you can get wine that um is made in um you know a manner that doesn't contribute to environmental degradation and is actually an agricultural product um uh and and that's amazing, and you can do that because it's it's still relatively inexpensive to make wine in places like Sicily um you just have to be a little more imaginative about how you go about it, you know you're not going to get you know um a name brand because you know your name brands are you know they they contribute to human misery largely and they're made in this like really cynical way, kind Of, uh, like, um, taste groups, um, you know, tested way, um, but you know, I say, like, in particular, you know, like this is inexpensive wine, I like, I like, in the institute, this cost me like 12-13, that's amazing, um, you know, most retail outlets, like 18-19, and, like, sure it's not like conventionally delicious, but it's like, super fun, um, I paid so I bought this at a, like, local retail, local retailer, because I wanted to find a representative, like Catarratto, it's like, $23, the reef of our, I mean, this is that's a lot of red wine at uh, you know, what should be a, like, $19-22 dollars at a retail outlet, so you know, um, I think that's amazing about Sicily. Too, um, and you know I think people assume that you know wine is, um, this luxury good and, and, yes, I don't want to diminish the fact that you know for $750 milliliters at you know 12 to 13 percent alcohol, that's not not in everybody's price range; there are more efficient ways to get drunk, there are always more efficient ways to get drunk, but um, if you care about what you're putting in your body and if you don't want to get the drunkest, um, you know it's it's worth spending that you know marginal five to ten dollars more um for something that's a little more interesting; and Sicily offers that in space. Ray has a great question. about um what you would pair the pelocali at reveler's hour or at tell great now um so i'm spending more of my time at um the problematic second child at the moment and uh um the um uh the kids at the fly ship or uh the mothership as i call it tailcoat are giving me a hard time about it perfectly so um we've served this wine at both places um for pato for me is this like pasta wine i just want like a a mountain of fresh pasta and some kind of tomatoey uh sauce thing um you know something about it just feels like you know taverna uh trattoria you know adjacent uh in a way that i really adore um tomatoes are cool because um and occasionally Kind of hard to bear with because tomatoes have this like red fruit quality, but the tomatoes are like raging acidic, um, which may be why I love tomatoes, um, because you know I like acid in wine, but they want a wine that has some kind of red fruit character, um, but equally matches that acidity because if you don't match the acid, tomatoes with your wine, your wine's just kind of like falls flat, it's going to be the uh balloon that collapses under its own you know or that just like kind of pops, and for Pató does that really well, um, uh, but like it's a good um, it's a good like, uh, other white meat kind of pork wine, I think it's actually a minor with uh uh swordfish uh tuna or super sicilian i think it's equally a great veg wine um i have a love jones for uh eggplant that is cooked to you know the italians actually they don't really like the italians don't do the al dente vegetables actually do like al dente for the pasta but when italians cook vegetables either they do like fresh veg or they cook them they cook the hell out of vegetables they hammer uh vegetables um so i like hammered eggplant uh with this um some kind of like fall autumnal mushroom thing um would be fabulous with the pato we actually had this popper deli with this like mushroom ragu situation Here at the moment, that's stupidly good that um I think this would be uh great with um but um it's it's a verse, it's very versatile wine um it's one of you know I I love love love Prosecco um uh you know there are um you know hundreds of native Italian varietals worth discovering uh but you know Prosecco is one I always come back to and just makes me smile absolutely um there's a funny joke if you cook the hell out of it, are they holy vegetables um yeah I don't know that's a good question I don't know I mean like uh uh just like vegetables in purgatory or vegetables uh I feel very you feel very Dante or for the sake of that uh not not purgatory. those would be those would be don't you know those would like uh in that other you know circles of hell whatever the hot circle bell is but i like i like my overcooked italian veg like my grandfather before me that's lovely um i think that wraps our questions for today that's great so um thank you all so much for joining you uh joining us on this absolutely beautiful day uh uh it's inspiring to see so many of you uh still with us uh get outside enjoy the wines um we'll circle back uh with another set of four offerings uh next week we're gonna do some Georgian wine again, going back to Wales with our old friend, Noel Brockett. Thank you as always, Zoe, for continuing to join us. You're the best. Salute.