Il Villaggio Organic Nero D'Avola Sicilia IGT 2018 (Italy)

Description

• Oaked
• Plush berries
• Milk chocolate & brown spices
• Soft tannins

"Fruit forward and friendly, the wine shows sweet raspberry, cherry, thyme and subtle savoury notes on the nose, followed by a beautifully rounded palate that’s smooth and fleshy. Up front and lovely drinking. At its best: now to 2021." Sam Kim, Wine Orbit

While slightly brooding on the nose this is characteristic Nero d’Avola with lifted aromatics and plush fruit intensity. Plum, blackberry and black cherry richness with supporting milk chocolate, brown spices and earthy complexity that is so typical of the region. The wine has a plushness of berries finishing long and dry with savoury notes and freshness of acidity. The tannins are soft and deliver a clear all-rounder; food friendly wine and an easy one to like on its own.

Sicily enjoyed constant temperatures throughout the spring and summer; mild and without excess, resulting in physiologically balanced grapes. Most wines were picked mid-September, with an optimal balance of alcohol and acidity. The even temperatures allowed the red grapes to continue maturing well into October, until midway through the month rain and humidity settled in. Nero d’Avola is a hardy variety that develops rich fruit flavour whilst maintaining its freshness and acidity in the warmer climate and vintages.

Hand harvested in the cool of the morning, fermented in open top fermenters with plunging by hand and additional time on skins to ensure colour and flavour extraction. Fermented slowly and then transferred into a combination of larger format oak and stainless steel for maturation. The wine was then blended and bottled with minimal fining and filtration.

On the far north-western tip of Sicily and sitting above the ancient city of Erice, are the beautiful vineyards striving to produce wines of expression and typicity. Older, low yielding vines that are farmed organically and painstakingly hand-harvested, here are an expression of love for an ancient way of life in an ancient land.