Color: Intense red, thick and deep with lightly garnet reflections. 
Nose: Mature, with notes of red berries as blackberry, raspberry and cherry, floral notes of violet and hints of tobacco and vanilla coming from the aging in wood. 
Palate: Soft and juicy with elegant and fine tannins, this wine shows excellent structure and body.
Pairings: Ideal with seasoned cheeses and cold cuts, ragù first courses, red meat and baked fish. The key red variety in Sicily is Nero d’Avola and this is a delicious example. The team use stainless steel for maturation of 30% of the wine, to retain fruit character and freshness, while the remaining 70% spends ten months in French oak barrels. Before release, the wine gets another year resting in bottle in the cellar. The wine has hints of development, but it retains freshness and life. Dark maroon in colour, the nose offers chocolate, mushrooms, smoked meats, tobacco leaves, blackberries, licorice and cassis. Balanced, focused and seamless, there is a line of fine acidity leading through to silky tannins. A ten year proposition.
93 pts - Jeni Port (Wine Pilot)It’s almost pointless trying to guess the grape varieties employed in this well-aged red from Siciily, but I suspect that the island’s number one red grape, Nero d’Avola, plays a reasonable role. There are some delightful, ripe plum, black cherries and warm-hearted spices on show which seem pure nero. Whatever the blend, it boasts a serious backbone of tannin and acid which has clearly had a part to play in its ageing – it has aged particularly well with no obvious browning or over-development. Indeed, the palate is bright and clean in fine tannins and acidity. Fruit is still very much evident with plum and black cherry joined by chocolate, spice, liquorice, bay leaf and woodsmoke. It has “drink me” written all over it now, but could have an extra odd year of cellaring.
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