Quincunx - Nero d’Avola Il Cantante

< Il Cantante

Nero d’Avola

Nero d’Avola Il Cantante is a project started in Pachino with the 2002 vintage and destined to run out with the 2005 vintage. It produced a balanced yet powerful red wine, still holding back the years with its fresh acidity.

The Nero d’Avola, also incorrectly called calabrese, can be considered the most typical and representative red grape of Sicily, not counting the area around Mt. Etna. It was selected by the vine growers of Avola, a small town south of Syracuse, several centuries ago and from there spread to the neighbouring towns of Noto and Pachino before being adopted across the whole Island.

It is a varietal that, if appropriately cultivated (low yields per vine) and vinified can give rise to great red wines. Wines with aging potential, in which the scents of red fruit, even after many years, are the most important component, together with typically “sweet” and not cutting tannins. Up to a few decades ago, it was used virtually exclusively for the production of blended wines (Pachino) and exported in large quantities, often by ship (from the port of Marzamemi, the most eastern point in Sicily) to Northern Italy (Tuscany, Piedmont etc.) and abroad (France), where it was used to enhance the pale local red wines.