2022 Eolia Bianco M Salina Malvasia IGT
It’s exciting to present a wine completely different than anything Vins Rare has ever offered. In fact, we don’t have a category for this one, and it's not something we’d normally carry or recommend. Sure, that’s all fun, but what makes it really exciting is that it’s so darn good!
No one is more surprised than me that Vins Rare is wholeheartedly recommending Eolia Bianco M., a beautiful wine produced on a remote Aeolian island called Salina (just off the toe of the Italian boot). If you’re a geography, geology and/or just a history nut, read the short STORY below. It’s captivating! Oh, and about those capers, don’t you want to go!?
When the importer brought this to me last summer, I snorted, blew raspberries and made all the facial expressions of a skeptic! But a couple sips in, I was completely humbled and blown away. My skeptical self placed a large order!
Then, while waiting for it to arrive, I forgot the name! ”A-O-lea”…emphasis on the first two vowels, throw away the “leah” part…. it just hadn’t stuck, yet.
The other day, when a client visited the warehouse asking for a crisp. clean white from Italy, I scratched my coconut, but then remembered this wine’s taste. Laughably, I found myself ferreting around in the bowels of our warehouse for a wine based on a taste recollection…but my pallet knows the way and I found it!!
Pouring it again, the nose was slightly floral, with a hint of white flowers in the background. In the mouth, the entry is clean and focused, as it gently glides across your tongue. It doesn’t hit you at first, but the real fireworks start when you swallow. It absolutely explodes on the backend with waves of mineral driven acidity. I physically shivered with delight!
I have no reference points for these producers - Malvasia - but I will tell you this one is an absolute stunner! I took home the opened bottle and we finished it off with some sushi! They could not have paired more beautifully. What a refreshing new profile with so many of my favorite aspects of a delicious white wine.
I’m so impressed, not only am I giving it my highest recommendation, I’m also offering my Money Back Guarantee!
Look, I know you’re going to snort and sniff with skepticism like I did!! Soooo…
— Story —
(from our importer)
After a lifetime as wine enthusiasts, Luca Caruso and Natascia Santandrea embarked on a project to make wine together on Salina, a remote Aeolian island off the northern coast of mainland Sicily. Neither name is new to the wine world; both Caruso and Santandrea have curated impressive wine lists for their respective restaurants: Luca at his family’s Michelin-starred hotel, “Signum”, on Salina, and Natascia at the now shuttered “La Tenda Rossa” in central Tuscany. In the throws of the pandemic in 2020, the couple (in life and in work) put their energy into something that they could call their own: making wine on Luca’s native Salina, a place he knows so well he could drive the roads with his eyes closed. 7.5 hectares and two white wines later, the concept is based on zoning; working in single parcels, harvesting and vinifying everything separately. Eolia is as much an homage to the energy, nature and profound amore for the island as it is an ode to the most recurring element of this couple’s relationship: vino buono.
The seven Eolian islands have a unique story and place in Mediterranean history. Colonized by the Greeks around 580 BC, they were believed to be the home of the Greek God of wind, Eolo. Salina is the greenest and most agriculturally rooted of the seven sister islands; a place where the sea and the island’s extinct twin volcanoes are equal protagonists. The cultivation of wine on the island has extended over centuries thanks to the geographic position, influence of the sea, unique sun exposition and legendary winds that sweep over the landscape. Eolia’s vineyards lie in two predominant areas of Salina: at sea level, near the town of Malfa, and in Valdichiesa - quickly becoming the most lauded area to source fruit on the island due to its elevated position between Salina’s two volcanic peaks, Monte delle Felci and Monte dei Porri, at nearly 400 m in altitude. Soils are of volcanic origin, rich with nutrients, and vineyards are traditionally terraced. The island is also known for the cultivation of DOP capers, which are known throughout the world.