Our friend SUNSHINE LICHAUCO DE LEON, journalist and producer, after having visited us numerous times has send us this lovely story.
Follow Sunshine on www. sunshinedeleon.com
There is nothing like exploring Sicily through the eyes of a Sicilian. They know and love their beautiful island with a passion that is contagious and admirable. Sicilians and southern Italians do everything with extreme passion whether hate or love, and Sicilians love their home.
Curiosity, a need for oxygen and salt air and the necessity of a short change of perspective brought us here, on the distant and wild Alicudi.
It’s not easy coming here. There are few connections and it takes almost 3 hours by hydrofoil from Milazzo. As soon as you touch the ground, however, you enter another dimension: a small society, shaped by the proud heights of this ancient volcano. Alicudi is nothing else than the emerged part of a more than 150 million years old volcano (Etna was born approximately 600 thousand years ago). If you try humanizing volcanos, just for a second, assuming that Etna was a little 18 years old girl (Sicilian people often attribute the feminine gender to Mont Etna: “a Muntagna!” (la montagna – the mountain)), then Alicudi would be a lively 4500 years old man.
Respect to Alicudi.
It was the last Saturday of October and maybe it was time for the last harvest on Mount Etna –maybe in the entire Sicily. All grapes of Nerello Mascalese, Nerello Cappuccio and Caricante had been gathered from the vines we can see along the streets and Etna wines were already coming to life deep in the cellars – just the craziness of a vineyard located at more than 1100 meters above sea level could push someone to such a late harvest. It had been a wonderful year on Etna, especially for white wines, while in the rest of Italy it had been a very difficult year for harvesting. That day the weather was cool, after the muggy weather of last week. At dawn I went with Sonia to Contrada Nave, where we could find our wonderful grapes, our clusters of Grecanico Dorato and Albanello: sweet and golden with pink hues, untouched.
Pros and cons of a vineyard located at extreme altitudes. Some of our more expert friends that visited our vineyard have pointed out that our vines grow at the most extreme altitude in the entire Europe. We knew already that having a vineyard at more than 1100 meters of altitude isn’t normal but, in a spirit of healthy curiosity, we have done some simple researches on the Internet.
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I would like to dedicate the first article of this blog to our Japanese friends and their wonderful mountain, the Fuji volcano. Who visits Japan can’t help feeling amazed by the organization of its society, the cleanliness and the precision of every part of its community, where everyone does his part – a part that everyone takes really seriously. During my stay in Tokyo I was really charmed by the fish market (fish market of Tsukiji), which I visit every time I go. It deserves a visit, also in the middle of the night.
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