Nero d'Avola

Nero d'Avola is Sicily's most planted red grape and takes its name from the town of Avola in the south east of the island. It is also called calabrese, which is misleading, since it is Sicilian rather than Calabrian; the name probably comes from a dialect phrase meaning grape of Avola.

It is a warm-climate grape with unusually good acidity for one, which is what keeps its wine from being heavy. The flavour is black cherry and plum with liquorice and a herbal, sometimes tarry edge, and the tannin is moderate and soft. For most of the twentieth century it was grown for bulk and shipped north to add colour and alcohol to weaker wines. Its rehabilitation as a varietal wine is recent and largely a matter of lower yields and earlier picking.

The best come from the south east around Noto and Pachino, and from the higher inland sites, where altitude keeps acidity up. Sicily as a whole is one of the more interesting wine regions in Europe now: alongside nero d'Avola, the volcanic slopes of Etna grow nerello mascalese and carricante at up to 1,000 metres and make wine with nothing warm-climate about it.