Marabino Terre Calcaree 2023

A vibrant, food-friendly red made entirely from Nero d'Avola, the Marabino Terre Calcaree 2023 takes its name from the striking white limestone soils of Sicily's Val di Noto — soils that shape the wine's unusually elegant, mineral-driven character for the variety.

Marabino is a certified organic and biodynamic winery based in the Val di Noto, farming vineyards in the "Buonivini" and "Barone" districts within the celebrated Eloro & Noto zone. The estate is a member of FIVI, the Italian Federation of Independent Winegrowers, and is built around a philosophy of minimal intervention. For the 2023 vintage, fruit was sourced from the Conca and Lenza Lunga vineyards, prized for their fine-textured, rock-rich white calcareous soil; the wine underwent spontaneous fermentation in steel tanks with an extended maceration on the skins, then matured for 20 months split between steel and bottle refinement.

The wine shows a bright, floral nose with real freshness and a distinctly savory minerality — a signature of the limestone terroir, which reflects sunlight back into the canopy and lends the wine an energetic, luminous quality rather than the deeper, riper style Nero d'Avola can take elsewhere in Sicily. On the palate it's lively and fruit-forward, with the steel-driven aging keeping it fresh and precise rather than tense or heavy.

It's a compelling, terroir-driven expression of Nero d'Avola — floral and mineral rather than jammy, and versatile enough to pair with red or white meats alike.