Colomba Bianca Kore Nero d Avola 2025
£13.45
The wine
An intense bouquet of rich brambly fruit with a seductive note of black pepper spice. Concentrated on the palate, with juicy blackberry and ripe plum beautifully balanced by velvety tannins. Quintessential Nero d Avola.
The Kore range takes the island's flagship red grape and gives it selected organic fruit and more careful handling. Nero d'Avola responds well to it: the variety has enough tannin and acidity to carry oak and concentration, which is why it is now taken as seriously in Sicily as Nebbiolo is in Piedmont.
The producer
Colomba Bianca
View all Colomba Bianca winesEstablished in 1970, Colomba Bianca is the largest grower cooperative in Sicily and the biggest producer of organic wine in Italy. More than 1,800 hectares are farmed organically, with a further 7,500 planted to indigenous and international varieties across the west of the island.
Sicily is well suited to organic growing for reasons that have nothing to do with fashion. The climate is hot and dry, humidity is low and the sea breezes keep the vineyards ventilated, so the fungal pressures that make organic viticulture difficult in northern Europe are largely absent. What the island has instead is a wealth of native grapes: Grillo and Inzolia for whites, Nero d'Avola for reds, Zibibbo which is Muscat of Alexandria, and Carricante and Nerello Mascalese from the slopes of Etna.
Despite the scale, the stated philosophy is micro-viticulture and micro-winemaking, working parcel by parcel rather than blending by the tank. Head winemaker Mattia Filippi tailors the range across five specialist wineries, and the results are consistently better than the cooperative model usually suggests.
