Showing posts with label perricone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label perricone. Show all posts

Friday, March 28, 2025

Meet the producer: Baglio Diar, Sicily, Italy

Diar's vineyard makes a strong overall impression because they make organic wines which are remarkably stable and balanced. 

It is well known how difficult it is to produce high quality stable and balanced organic wines, and while the Sicilian climate helps only few manage to achieve Diar's qualitative results.

Each Diar bottle recalls Sicilian culture, an emotional connection between the land and some of the people who made Sicily the trailblazer of Italian culture in recent decades.

Sicilian literature figures prominently on all the labels, and as advertised on their website, for the name of our wines they took inspiration from five female characters who appear in the work of Verga and Pirandello, two giants of the island's literature: Fantasia, Nedda, Selene, Velata and  Dida.

One more original and unique way to underline the fact that wine is part of our culture.

Below are my tasting notes for the samples that were kindly provided to Roving Somm.

They also make extra virgin organic olive oil.

Grillo 2023
Grillo is the archetypal grape from the Marsala region, and it is used for the famous fortified wine. It is born from a cross of Inzolia and Catarratto. This bottle is generous with aromas, fresh and well balanced. A stronger character than your typical Grillo, amplified by a good length.
Score 90










Catarratto 2023
Another signature grape from western Sicily. A gentle mix of floral aromas gives way to a well structured palate with good acidity and balance.
Score 90




Zibibbo 2023
Moscato d'Alessandria from Sicily is known around the world for sweet or almost sweet wines, but not only. Diar has produced a dry but smooth wine with a remarkable structural character that does not prevent the emergence of fruit and floral notes. Excellent balance, a constant of Diar, and good length.
Score 91






Syrah 2023
This bottle is not from an indigenous grape variety but it is well known that Syrah (or Shiraz as it is called in some parts of the world) has established its own tradition in Sicily for some time. I paired this smooth and complex wine with saffron rice.
Score 89








Perricone 2023
Intriguing violet color in the glass for this most Sicilian perricone which exudes delicate red fruit aromas and a gentle acidity that makes for a wine ready to drink now. I would recommend cooling this bottle slightly in order to contain its alcoholic exuberance.
Score 91





Inzolia
A lot of character for this inzolia. Nutty notes do not overpower its lively citrusy overtone that confers a pleasant freshness to the palate. An excellent, versatile wine for Summer dishes in the warm Sicilian climate.
Score 90


Rosé

To complete the range here is a bottle of rosé made with nero d'Avola grapes. This is an easy wine, dry but with a touch of candy flavors that linger in the palate. I can see this for a Summer garden party, served well chilled as aperitif.
Score 80



Friday, April 5, 2019

Wines of Sicily, selection of indigenous grapes

Tonight we met for one more session on the wines of Sicily.

This time it was conducted in English for a smaller group of our members.
Presentation on Sicilian wines

Today's presentation on Sicilian wine is available in English here.

We blind-tasted a selection taken from the large number of wines we sampled last November at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Brussels.

This time we chose to focus on indigenous grapes. Sicily is known for a huge number of these, up to 100 including some historical ones now out of production, and therefore we inevitably had to make some painful choices.
Bottles dressed up for blind tasting
Our plan is to complete this tasting with another one that will cover grapes and producers we did not have time to do justice to today.

For the whites we started with a Gaudensius, a traditional method bubbly made by Firriato with a creative and happy blend of chardonnay and catarratto.

A carricante by Planeta revealed the richness of the volcanic soil on the Etna.

Best pairing with arancino?
Among the reds, for nero d'Avola, the most famous of Sicilian reds, we had a bottle of Hedonis by Feudo Arancio.

This was followed by nero d'Avola in its incarnation as a component, together with frappato, of the only DOCG of Sicily, the Cerasuolo di Vittoria, Sammauro by Nanfro.

Then perricone, an intriguing black grape which is unfortunately less popular today than it used to be and harder to find. We appreciated a Gibellina by Tenute Orestiadi.

crostini and sardines
Literally dulcis in fundo, we tasted the zibibbo passito by Firriato, Ecru, which was considered the most interesting wine of the evening by a consensus of all tasters tonight.

We also had a chance to try some pairing with Sicilian foods like arancini, cannoli and diversi tipi di crostini alle sarde e al pesto siciliano.

We also tried Sicilian extra virgin olive oil, fruity and aromatically assertive as we expected.
















On behalf of the Associazione Italiana Sommelier our thanks to the following importers in Belgium: 

Licata
Young Charly
Marcon Vini

And the following producers:

Firriato
Planeta
Villagrande
Feudo Arancio
Cusumano
Nanfro
Palari
Tenute Orestiadi
Tenuta Terre Nere
Morgante 

for their support of our Brussels club.



End of an evening of hard work