Tenuta delle Terre Nere San Lorenzo Etna Rosso 2023
Tenuta delle Terre Nere San Lorenzo Etna Rosso 2023
Drinking Window 2027 - 2036
The 2023 Etna Rosso San Lorenzo is surprisingly rich and spicy in this vintage. Cloves and cinnamon sticks combine with hints of cherry sauce and blood orange. This is elegant in style, with seamlessly silken textures and depths of ripe red berry fruits that saturate the palate in primary concentration. Powerful and potent, the 2023 finishes with extreme length and a staining of liquid lavender that lingers for well over a minute. The 2023 is unlike any San Lorenzo I've yet tasted. This has unbelievable depth. - By Eric Guido on May 2025
Leave it to Marco de Grazia of Tenuta delle Terre Nere to take what many consider a difficult, lower-quality vintage and turn out a lineup of wines that exceeded expectations—and left this taster in awe. Interestingly, when I asked many producers how they adapted their winemaking in a challenging year like 2023, the most common answer was: “We didn’t change anything.” That’s a disappointing reality at many estates, but not here. De Grazia described 2023 as the most difficult vintage he’s experienced on Etna. Spring rains totaling around 400 millimeters triggered a devastating outbreak of downy mildew, cutting yields by up to 70% on the northern slopes. The eastern side was largely spared, which helps explain the strength of Terre Nere’s whites. The wet spring gave way to a hot, drought-stricken summer, leading to thicker skins and uneven ripening, as many vines shut down under hydric stress. Fortunately, light rains in September and ideal conditions through October helped save the harvest. The team responded with intense selection in both vineyard and cellar, followed by shorter macerations and minimal pumpovers. The resulting 2023s in bottle are some of the most exotic, finessed and elegant wines Terre Nere has ever produced. They deliver immense pleasure, but in some cases, such as the San Lorenzo, they reach a new level of depth and texture.
The terroir of Contrada San Lorenzo 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.
San Lorenzo is the Contrada that marks the North West border of the D.O.C. Etna and therefore has the coldest climate of the D.O.C. This climate combined with soils especially rich in ash, creates a unique and unrepeatable combination. Wines that at the same time enclose vigor and generosity in a sumptuous tension. Purebred wines.
Appellation: Etna Rosso D.O.C.
Production area: Municipality of Randazzo
Grapes: Nerello Mascalese.
Vineyard extension: 8 hectares.
Production: 6 tons per hectare.
Soil: volcanic, volcanic ash with black pumice.
Exposure: north side of Etna at 700-850 meters above sea level
Age of the vines: from 50 to 100 years.
Annual production: 6,000 bottles.
