It surprises some people to learn that I drink mostly white and pink wines, since mass consensus equates wine seriousness with wine redness. But usually I just happen to be after acidity, verve, refreshment, delicacy, delineation, terroir imprint, suggestion, flex … rather than power, tannin, concentration, weight, coverage, certainty. It’s simplistic to ascribe the former list strictly to white wines and the latter to reds, but like most simplifications it can serve as a general guide.

This predilection steers my antennae to pick up sounds of whiteness emanating from red transmitters. When a red wine expresses the balletic grace, cool fleetness and equanimous precision of my favorite whites, I swoon. Though I don’t want red wines to taste like whites, I often find myself wanting them to behave with a similar spirit.

This is why I love so many wines coming from Sicily these days, and I’m not alone in my enthusiasm: Sicilian wines are enjoying an expansive moment. Many aficionados of Italian wine claim that this large island is ground zero for the country’s most exciting and innovative winemaking. A strong case could be made for expanding that assertion to include the entire world.

The breathtaking, diverse volcanic wines of Mount Etna alone have everyone talking, while other regions’ unique terroirs, newly revealed via lighter-handed viticulture and winemaking than in past decades and centuries, are thrilling fields of exploration for contemporary drinkers. Several Sicilian winemakers have referred to their island as a “continent” unto itself.

Add to this the cultural and historical heterogeneity of the island – a salmagundi of southern Italian, North African, Arab, Greek, Spanish, Eastern European and other influences – and you have an ideal postmodern fable. Dozens of languages, races and cuisines, all atop soils and altitudes just as varied and far-reaching, creating foods and wines utterly distinctive in their own right, which seem to speak simultaneously from the certainties of the past and the strangeness of the future.

The great reds of Sicily remind me of Burgundy in how they bundle undeniable potency and impact with a limpidity and suppleness that leave the drinker invigorated rather than laden. Alas, they also remind me of Burgundy’s relatively high prices.

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Personally, were price no object I would happily commit 80 percent of my red-wine-drinking life to the best wines of this one island, from Passopisciaro’s IGT Sicilia ($44) to Arianna Occhipinti’s Siccagno ($36); and Etna Rossi from Valcerasa ($26), Terre di Trente ($42) and Frank Cornelissen ($26 or $43, depending on mood and therefore wine). Even Tasca D’Almerita’s iconic Rosso del Conte ($30 or so), the first super “serious” wine of Sicily, would find a place at my table certain winter nights.

Then, there’s Azienda Agricola COS’s Cerasuolo di Vittoria Classico ($33), which I’m certain I could drink with joy every third night for the rest of my life. Cerasuolo di Vittoria is non-Etna Sicily’s most distinctive wine: a dark pink 60/40 blend of the lowlands’ two most prevalent grapes: nero d’avola and frappato. The purity, clarity and sheer loveliness of the COS all gain ground and intrigue with me the more I drink it.

But I don’t drink it, very much, since for me $33 is special-occasion range. COS remains my lodestar, and I’m on a fervent journey to locate at least some of its profound charms in other wines. The search has gotten easier. In the past, frappato was grown and vinified superficially, employed only as a softening agent to balance blends of overheated nero d’avola. Now frappato with more distinctive character and nero d’avola in a lighter mode, more lively and varied, are available to us.

For all this, credit many of the same renovations of traditional methodology that are sweeping other wine regions where a younger generation has taken over. Aided by the Internet and the convenience of modern travel, new winemakers are much better informed about grape-growing and winemaking in other parts of the world.

My guess is that more Sicilian winemakers these days have drunk pinot noir from Burgundy and northern Italy, have drunk cru Beaujolais; they get that red wines don’t have to attack from below. And they’ve likely read about and spoken with the international proponents of organic viticulture, cover-cropping, temperature control in cellar.

Sicily is warm, but it’s a good warm. Grapes ripen easily but in vineyards well ventilated by maritime breezes, which also discourage bugs. It’s relatively easy to farm without heavy pesticide or fungicide use. Mostly limestone soils are quite low in the organic matter that can plump grapes immoderately and result in excessive density and alcohol content.

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As in Burgundy, then, whose subsoils are similar to those in much of Sicily, it’s possible to produce balanced, precise wines that don’t have to shout their merits in order to advertise them.

Before we get to the brief list below that can serve as a varied introduction, a few notes on application. First off, I love these wines chilled. Not too much, but especially in summer go a bit cooler than the usual 15-minutes-in-the-fridge default for red wine, to emphasize the lifted tonality and pretty fruit traits of the wines.

Don’t overthink the menu, for these wines are terrifically flexible. Summer vegetables suffused in olive oil and herbs are a beautiful match, but so are a surprising array of proteins: I’ve had marvelous meals of the Tamí with tuna, mussels in a tomato base, and many bean dishes; of the Cadetto with grilled steak and bitter greens; of the Tresa with spicy sausages and roasted tomatoes; of the Rapitalá with pizzas and a burger.

Even the more expensive, structured wines listed above shine brightest with meals that come together through love and simplicity rather than commitment and planning. All of these fantastic wines are on island time: unhurried, confident, easygoing, happy.

Feudo di Santa Tresa Frappato ($12). Remember, frappato is the fruity/floral partner in many Sicilian blends. Vinified on its own, this stainless-fermented and cement-aged beauty is made for summer months. Incredibly refreshing and lithe, it could be drunk at white-wine temperature, 20 minutes out of the refrigerator. Deliciously cherry-tinged, with some quiet dried-herb notes in the back, it’s a controlled wine, not taking huge risks, but at 12.5 percent alcohol gulpable and undeniably pretty.

Tamí Nero D’Avola 2013 ($19) is my current star, a collaborative project initiated by the Sicilian wunderkind naturalista Arianna Occhipinti. Occhipinti’s own wines (including the Siccagno mentioned above) from vineyards next to family relative COS’s are glorious terroir transmissions. The Tamí reflects her desire to produce a more everyday-styled and -priced wine that still expresses the truth of the area. Organically grown nero d’avola from young vines macerate for a short one week, are fermented naturally in stainless steel and then bottled soon. It’s a thought-provoking wine, but the thoughts are excitable and kinetic. The flavors are lifted, cool, blue and graphitic, dancing around the mouth unencumbered.

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Tenuta Rapitalà Campo Reale Nero D’Avola 2012 ($13) moves into darker and fuller-bodied territory, due to the slightly denser clay soils of its vineyards, longer maceration before fermentation, and four months during which one-fifth of the wine ages in small used oak barrels. And for now, the 2012 is still available in Maine, so you get a wine with an additional year of bottle age. Whereas the Tamí is crackling with exuberance, the Rapitalà, floral and cherry-like, is softer and more elegant though still quite nimble.

Tenuta La Lumia Nero D’Avola “Cadetto” 2013 ($17) expresses a firmer structure than the Rapitalà, and a bit more alcohol. It’s the nero d’avola I turn to when red meat or aged cheeses are around, but I still want a wine that will dance with the food. The fruit in this wine is in that darker land of plums, abetted by forest notes, pronounced spice and raw leather. I just drank the last I have of the 2011 vintage: all dried flowers, fruit returned to earth, beloved possessions used well for a lifetime.

It was one of those magical experiences where a wine shifts your frame of mind, puts new implications and suggestions in your life. And the larger lesson for me was that while these wines are beautifully fresh and supple when young, they can go into an entirely different realm after just a few years of rest and relaxation.

Joe Appel is the Wine Buyer at Rosemont Market. He can be reached at:

soulofwine.appel@gmail.com


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