Located in the exact center of the Mediterranean Sea, lies Marsala – a coastal Sicilian town with lots of sun, little rain, and an almost-spicy, salt-air breeze that wakes up your senses while soaking in the breathtaking views. It’s an exciting place for winemaking at the moment, with a handful of young producers doing new things with very old vineyards that have all but been forgotten after the world moved on from the famous dessert wine. And it was here where Manuela Rendina landed in 2018 after escaping the busy life of Rome, ready to chart her own personal agricultural and wine journey. Maunela moved to Sicily to do a vintage with the influential Marsalese enologist and winemaker Vincenzo Angileri of Viteadovest; she ended up staying for 3 vintages and began to make wine in 2020 in Vincenzo’s cellar with her partner, Sicilian-born Gaia Barbagallo. ‘Midia’ is short for her grandmother’s name, Emidia, an homage to the woman who taught her love and respect for the earth, the now guiding principles of Maunela’s farming and winemaking. All of their biodynamically farmed fruit – the native Italian grapes Grillo and Frappato – is tended to by hand; wines are made via spontaneous fermentation (aka using the naturally occurring yeasts in the vineyard) and very little intervention.
The abundance of amazing old vineyards in Marsala available for pennies (it is the most heavily planted wine region in the EU) meant that Manuela was able to obtain fruit from the most famous sites and eventually to lease her own block of vines, a parcel of Grillo on a vast ancient seabed, covered by sand that blows from Africa and speckled with limestone and marine fossils. This is an incredible place to grow vines and the Grillo grapes which were once harvested at 16% for Marsala, when picked at 12% yield an amazingly fresh and saline palate. Maunela’s 100% Grillo is from limestone and sandy solis, sees a quick 48 hours on the skins, and is fermented and aged in steel. Golden in the glass, stone fruit and tropical melon mix with headier notes of honeysuckle, sultanas, and salted caramel apple. This has some zing to it, as yellow pear and tart green apple notes are carried on a bright, beachy beam of acidity. Fresh, mineral-driven, and refreshingly unadorned, just a ‘sunshine-in-glass’ kind of interpretation of Marsala’s soils, winds, and the proximity to the sea.