Active volcanoes exert a magical, threatening attraction. This is also true of Mount Etna, on the east coast of Sicily, which the locals reverently call "a Muntagna" (the mountain). The barren landscape on its slopes, the huge, cooled lava flows, the black scree and ash deserts, partly greyed by lichen growth: a very unique, archaic beauty reveals itself to the visitor here.
The 3,340-metre-high smoking mountain towers majestically over the almost 60,000-hectare regional park, the Parco dell'Etna. Etna has been a Unesco World Heritage Site since 2013. What makes it so unique? Its almost continuous eruptive activity, its unpredictability. Again and again it lets off steam. Again and again, new craters open up, glowing fountains shoot into the sky, huge lava flows roll downhill. When the mountain spits fire, it is both a monumental spectacle and an oppressive threat for locals and tourists alike. Although Etna is one of the best researched and monitored volcanoes in the world, in the end no one is armed against its unpredictable destructive power.
Up to an altitude of about a thousand metres ("quota mille"), the slopes of the volcano are thriving with houses, fruit trees, citrus plantations and vines. The rest up to the summit is almost devoid of vegetation, black, grey, a dusty, stony moonscape.
The ash that the volcano spreads during its eruptions and the lava that weathers over time into black soil rich in minerals are enormously fertile. They are the reason why people settled so close to the volcano in the first place. They wanted to take advantage of the great fertility of this earth. Vines thrive particularly well here. It is therefore not surprising that there used to be far more vineyards on Etna than there are today. In the 19th century, there are said to have been 50,000 hectares. The slopes of the volcano were covered with vines. The wine was sold mainly to wineries in northern Italy and central Europe, shipped from the port of Riposto north of Catania. When demand for Sicilian blended wine collapsed and also less and less open wine was drunk in the nearby coastal towns of Catania and Taormina, most farmers left their terraced vineyards to themselves. Some historic farms such as Benanti, Murgo or Barone di Villagrande remained faithful to viticulture, but Etna wines became rather quiet. For a long time, they did little credit to their DOC status, which they received in 1968. It was only in the 2000s that winegrowers from outside the region, such as Marc de Grazia (Terre Nere), the Tuscan Andrea Franchetti (Passopisciaro) and others, recognised the untapped potential and breathed new life into the appellation.
Word has spread around the world that elegant and finesse-rich wines are produced on the slopes of Mount Etna. The demand is growing. More and more wineries are springing up. "Over the past eight years, demand for Etna DOC wine has risen steadily," says consortium director Maurizio Lunetta. From 2013 to today, with a slight decrease in 2020 because of the Covid 19 pandemic, the number of wines bottled has increased from 1.5 million bottles to 4.5 million bottles." A rapid growth.
Correspondingly, the area under vines is increasing. In the past ten years, the area under cultivation in the DOC Etna has grown from 680 hectares to around 1,300 hectares. All renowned Sicilian wineries have invested in vineyards on Etna. None could escape this development. And top winemakers like Angelo Gaja from Piedmont have also succumbed to the attraction of the unique terroir. The fact that the volcano has an equally threatening component, that it could erupt at any time and destroy vineyards and winery buildings, is suppressed by the winegrowers. Antonio Rallo (Donnafugata) puts it in a nutshell: "Of course you have in the back of your mind that the volcano also has its dangerous sides, especially if you make a major investment. But that hasn't stopped us, you just push those negative thoughts aside."
For some years now, the Etna Consortium for the appellation has decided on a stop to new plantings, which is intended to prevent overproduction and uncontrolled growth. But more new winemakers are already waiting in the wings. The fascination continues.