Monday Night Wine Dinner: Antonio Benanti of Benanti, Mount Etna, Sicily @ Frasca Food & Wine

No Italian wine region has exploded into popularity on an international scale in the last few years quite like Mount Etna on Sicily. The Benanti family truly is one of the originals – they have farmed estate vineyards on Mount Etna since the 1800s when founder Dr. Giuseppe Benanti first planted vines. The winery is traditional and makes stunning wines of a mineral-driven and classic nature. The Benanti Family championed the carricante grape on Etna before many saw the potential of the variety. Their famed Etna Bianco Cru “Pietramarina” is a powerful, yet complex white wine, deserving of its praise, and is rapidly becoming a unicorn wine of Italy, increasingly difficult to find. Their “Cavaliere” Etna Bianco is similarly compelling – mineral, complex and saline. Outside of the stunning carricante whites, Benanti produces a range of wines from Etna that truly speak to the complex diversity of the terroir of region. Their approachable entry-level Etna Rosso is a precise, bright and highly crushable version of Nerello Mascalese. The more complex reds of the domaine – like the monovarietal Nerello Mascalese or the “Serra della Contessa” Etna Rosso Cru – are both dense, structured and truly do “meet you on the corner of grenache and sangiovese” (as we love to say at Frasca when it comes to Nerello!). Proprietor Antonio Benanti will be on hand to show the greatest examples of the entire appellation. A must for Italian wine lovers and wine nerds.