Murgo, Etna Rosso

Bright bing cherry fruit; a little wood smoke; flinty minerality; some baking spice; great acidity and lift; fine-grained tannins; rose petal florals…no, this is not a lead-in to another red Burgundy offer (although it could be). It’s a lead-in to another Etna Rosso offer, which means, among other things, that it’ll cost you a lot less to continue reading (especially in this case).This wine from Murgo is a genuine wine of place, with a real pedigree, for under $20. I taste it and think, how is this possible? Well, a long history certainly helps: the Scammacca del Murgo family has been farming the ashy slopes of Sicily’s Mount Etna for more than 100 years. They are one of the ‘O.G.’ wine families on Etna, not subject to the bid-up land values, new construction costs, and other price pressures in a zone that has seen more than its share of Johnny-come-latelys. A good analog might be one of the grand old bodegas of Rioja, releasing beautiful, long-aged Gran Reservas at prices well below t