Calabretta Cala Cala Rosso
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From 4 generations, the Calabretta family has grown grapes according to the century-old traditions of Etna; minimizing vineyard treatments, (only low quantity of “Copper Sulphate” & “Sulphrum”). We make the “green manure”, the “mulch”, “plowing”, “strictly pruning the vines”. Our head pruned vineyards are delineated by volcanic stone walls that crisscross our landscape. The volcanic soil of our area, combined with the dramatic temperature differential between day and night & the high solar daily yields grapes of singular expression when harvested in the middle of October only perfectly ripe. Our wines’ flavors and aromas are a marvelous expression of this special part of Italy. Our vineyards have evolved naturally and the vines are intermingled with olive trees and fruit orchards. When in our vineyards, you smell the wild grasses and there is a strong sense of terroir. You can hear the chirping of crickets and the buzzing of bees, wasps & little hornet. Wild rabbits scamper through our vineyards and, occasionally, love to eat the young leaves of the newly planted vines ... but this is nature! In our vineyards, depending on the season, you can find fichi d’India (prickly pear), sparagogne (a bitter variety of asparagus) and cavolicelli (an indigenous type of rappini) that we harvest for family and friends. At higher elevations, you can find brooms and mountain flowers. And all the time: we protect and maintain the landscape of our dry-set lava stone walls and clear the ancient pathways to our vineyards. The company's tradition is rooted in this land, in fact, already in the early 1900s we were producing and exporting large quantities of wine. At the same time, the town of Passopisciaro arose to accommodate the many peasants who were arriving en masse looking for work. This lead to the construction of large millstones “palmenti” , and the emergence of many small producers. Today, a century later, Etna is renowned for its wines of character and tradition. In the early-1900s, Gaetano Calabretta married “donna Grazia”, and purchased vineyards in addition to those he inherited with his marriage. In the years between 1920 and 1930, the wines were mainly sold in northern Italy. After War World II, their son Salvatore married a young woman “donna Concetta”, which also had substantial vineyard holdings. The addition of this land increased the company’s vineyard size even more. In 1997, Massimo & Massimiliano (son & nephew of Salvatore & Concetta), built a new winery and started to bottle and sell the Calabretta wines all over the world. Today, we continue to make and champion the traditional wines of Etna rosso and Etna rosato, but we also experiment with new single-variety wines, along with the wines of Climax and Contrada.