Cantina marilina is an estate in eastern Sicily inland from Siracusa, by the town of Noto. Angelo Paterno bought and founded the estate but running it has been taken over by his daughters Marilina and Federica. Angelo was a professional wine maker who worked many other places in Sicily before finally buying his own land. He has quite a mix of grapes planted here, including all the regular Sicilian suspects of Cataratto, Moscato, Grecanico, Inzolia, Nero d'Avola, etc, but also grapes like Viognier. The vineyards are farmed organically and Marilina spent some time working with Frank Cornelissen up on mount Etna. they have a technical scientific appreciation from Angelo's professional experience but are trying to really make wines that taste like and express the dry calcerous sun swept vineyards that they have here.
This is a skin fermented dry Moscato. What?! Yeah. I pulled the cork on a bottle the moment it arrived because I had no idea what to expect.
The Cue' went through a 5 month fermentation in concrete tanks with indigenous yeasts. It's not particularly noticeably oxidative though. However the skin contact certainly made the wine more savory. It's a totally dry Moscato, but the savory influence of the skin contact balances the Moscato's tropical aromatic tendencies and makes the wine way more interesting. The midpalate is salty and there's some toasted almond that balances out all the apricot and pineapple that the wine leads off with.
Altogether this tastes like pineapple and cantaloupe seared on a grill on a hot heavy Sicilian summer night.
Maybe it's just this snow bank I'm sitting in that's making me think of Sicilian summers....