ABOUT THE PRODUCER:  Marco de Grazia, one of the original ’Barolo Boys’ on reaching Etna, developed a new vigour surrounding this unique winegrowing region. A region defined by extreme weather, incredibly varied soil structures created from the caving in of the volcano tens of thousands of years ago, and the subsequent lava flows of the volcano that is still active today. Couple this with altitudes between 400-1000metres and a 360-degree site aspect circling the slopes of Mount Etna, this is a thought-provoking region. Tenuta Delle Terre Nere released their first vintage in 2002. Marco is considered by many to be the pioneer of Etna on the world map. He was the driving force behind convincing the Italian wine industry and the Ministry of Agriculture to understand the value of officially demarcating Contrada within their wine producing areas. The classification system used was influenced by the Burgundian model. Marco is a big fan of this system and has integrated the model into his own line-up. The Bianco and Rosso represent more geographically generic wines, though TdTN still grow organically and meticulously at this level. Their ‘cru’ wines depict the Contrada or the village they are from and are further elevated with single vineyards he considers to be at ‘grand cru’ level.