Tenuta delle Terre Nere Calderara Sottana Etna Rosso 2024
Tenuta delle Terre Nere Calderara Sottana Etna Rosso 2024
95 points Vinous Media
Drinking window: 2029 - 2042
Dark and brooding, the 2024 Etna Rosso Calderara Sottana offers aromas of dusty earth, tobacco and ash before giving way to citrus-laced black cherries. It's round and pliant with violet florals and nearly creamy textures. Ripe red fruits saturate as fine tannins build toward the close. The 2024 finishes with fabulous length and structure, leaving a touch of cranberry to pucker the cheeks. This will require considerable patience.
The 2024s from Tenuta delle Terre Nere are nearly hedonistic in character yet remain expertly balanced. They are a fascinating follow-up to the 2023s, which were all about finesse and energy. The contrast speaks to Marco de Grazia’s ability to let the growing season come through without sacrificing balance.
Among the single-vineyard releases, the Etna Rosso Bocca d’Orzo continues to impress with each passing vintage, followed closely by the San Lorenzo. The Etna Rosso Prephylloxera, typically the most tightly wound bottling upon release, was highly expressive this year. The 2024 vintage also marks the inaugural release of a new Etna Bianco Superiore from Caselle, a cru on the eastern slopes in Milo. The crystalline, powerful 2024 highlights why this sector continues to grow in popularity.
Beginning with the 2026 vintage, updated DOC regulations will finally permit producers to include a wine’s specific township (comune) of origin on its label. This is a bureaucratic victory de Grazia has championed for a long time in an effort to better distinguish Etna’s various terroirs. As de Grazia commented, “I see it as my responsibility to help pave the path for Etna.” The current system simply falls short, as terroir can change drastically even within the boundaries of a single contrada. Tenuta delle Terre Nere remains both a benchmark on the volcano and an important force shaping its next generation. - Eric Guido September 2026
Winery:
The soils of Calderara Sottana are easily recognizable, even at a glance. Of all the crus of the Etna DOC they are certainly the stoniest. So much so that in some areas you can’t see the ground from the stones that cover it. Fist-size, light, a mix of black pumice and basalt.
The word itself, Calderara, recalls heat, probably born from the warmth that the black stones retain and transmit back to the earth on cold nights.
The terroir of the Contrada Calderara was originated from lava flows and volcano-clastic deposits related to the effusive and explosive activity of the Elliptic volcano, approximately between 60,000 and 15,000 years ago. Although very young in geological terms, the Elliptic soil is the oldest surface layer where it is possible to plant in the appellation. The reason is simple: millennia of lava flows have buried the oldest soils, leaving, in fact, only small and rare portions of the soil of the Elliptic. On the north side of Etna there are five or six Contradas that have “elliptical terroir”. Three of them, however, are spurious, as the igneous nature of the Elliptic is mixed with alluvial soils of a sedimentary nature due to the overflow of the Alcantara river. On the north side of Etna only three Contradas are “pure” elliptical terroir: Bocca d’Orzo, Calderara and San Lorenzo.
The altitude varies from 600 to 700 meters. The harvest takes place in the second ten days of October. Locally Calderara and its wines enjoy an extraordinary reputation. Our Calderara Sottana is the result of very old vineyards, from 60 to 100 years of age. Of all our crus it is perhaps the most complete: just as a wide-angle lens includes the widest panorama, so our Calderara seems to contain and exhibit the widest spectrum of flavors, aromas and nuances. Distinctly autumnal, spicy, it is aromatic and austere at the same time. It gives a wonderful sensation of fullness on the palate, but ineffably light.
Don Peppino, whose devotion to Calderara drove him to cultivate its vines for 70 years, describes Calderara’s wines well: “creamy”, he called them. And he was right. Noble poultry, white meat ragù, pork loin, pork in milk, rabbit in white wine, lamb in the oven.
Appellation: Etna Rosso D.O.C.
Production area: Communes of Randazzo.
Grapes: Nerello Mascalese.
Production: 5 tons per hectare.
Vineyard extension: 15 hectares.
Soil: volcanic, very stony, pumice and basalt with little ash.
Exposure: north side of Etna, from 600-650 meters above sea level
Age of the vineyards: from 60 to 100 years
