Colomba Bianca Lavi Nerello Mascalese 2025
£12.95
The wine
A warm and elegant Nerello Mascalese with aromatic notes of rose complemented by wild strawberry and raspberry. Light bodied, with soft enveloping tannins running through to a long, smooth finish.
Nerello Mascalese is the red grape of Etna, grown on the volcano's black slopes and often compared to Nebbiolo or Pinot Noir for its pale colour, high acidity and fine tannin. It ripens very late, sometimes into November, and the altitude and volcanic ash give the wines a savoury, mineral character quite unlike the rest of Sicily.
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.
