Frank Cornelissen - Mount Etna
A pioneer in low-intervention winemaking
Just arrived from the slopes of
the very active volcano!
“Capturing a snapshot of Mount Etna within each bottle”- Eric Guido, Vinous Media
2020 Frank Cornelissen Susucaru Rosso
$32.89/750ML In Stock- Buy Now
2020 Frank Cornelissen Munjebel Rosso
$49.89/750ML In Stock- Buy Now
“Imagine pouring in a decanter half a bottle of a Côtes-de-Nuits Villages and half a bottle of Barbaresco of a good vintage and tasting this ‘cocktail’ after half an hour. This will give you a good idea of an Etna Rosso wine: fragrant, light color, fine tannins, structure and elegance. Obviously missing the distinct touch of sunshine and Mediterranean generosity of a real Etna Rosso!” - Frank Cornelissen
Photo by GVWM customer from 2/22
We just had the chance to taste the new Susucaru from Frank Cornelissen. It was vibrant and alive, with bright red fruits and an amazing earthy (you could say volcanic) undertone. Very juicy and lingering, it benefits from a slight chill and reminded me of visiting Catania and how it would be perfect with the meal I had of tuna 7 different ways (tuna is the pork of the sea to the Sicilians).
You can’t overestimate the impact that winemakers like Frank Cornelissen, and many others, have made in the last 20 years to bring the wines of Mt. Etna to the world. His dedication to making wines in the natural way with minimal intervention to allow him to capture the place that is Etna and share it with the world, is what makes these wines so vibrant and special. His old, ungrafted, bush trained vines of Nerello Mascalese, Nerello Capuccio, Alicante Boushet, and other local grapes grow in biodiverse vineyards in the high elevations of the volcano, with local fruits, lots of bees, buckwheat and other plants to support the entire ecosystem. Wines ferment with wild yeasts and are aged int epoxy-coated terra cotta amphorae buried in the volcanic soil.
“Most fans of wines from Etna have all heard this story, but if they never experienced the results, then it’s impossible to truly understand what Frank Cornelissen has accomplished. Throughout the area, there are many producers that are now turning out world-class wines, but finding one that obtains such depth of texture, the unique character of fruit aromas and flavors, and with the potential to mature evenly in a cellar, without the use of any winemaking wizardry, is not easy to do...the purity of Mount Etna...that’s what Frank Cornelissen is bottling.” - Eric Guido, Vinous Media
