'Piripicchio' loosely translates to ‘happy go lucky,’ a nod to the intention behind the wine - drink with friends without the usual formality associated with sparkling wine. Blood orange and grapefruit meets lite florals and all that volcanic drive!
This rosé sparkling wine is made entirely of Nerello Mascalese, from vines that are between 40 and 100 years old, grown at between 650 and 750 meters (roughly 2,100 and 2,500 feet) in elevation. The soils are volcanic, as they are everywhere on Etna, formed from lava flows of different periods that have weathered with time. The wine is made by a very unusual winemaking method called the ‘Metodo Scacchi,’ which starts with the production of a rosé still wine: fruit is picked in early October; the grapes are pressed, with a few hours of maceration in the press to pick up a little pink color, then allowed to start fermenting using their own yeasts. Once the base wine is made, it ages in tank and used barriques until the following fall, when it is blended with a little unfermented juice from the new harvest. Then the combination is bottled with a crown cap; the wine referments in the bottle, with all of the CO2 being captured, along with a little residual yeast from the fermentation. The wine is released after about six months. (This is a little like the ‘methode champenois,’ but using must instead of sugar, and with no disgorgement.)