To celebrate the arrival of Sicilian producer Fabio Ferracane to our wine shelves we’ve asked importer and founder of Wayward wines Steve Nutall to host a tasting and introduce the wines to you.
A free tasting, guiding you through 4 of Fabio’s incredible wines from the west coast of Sicily with all the wines available by the glass on the night.
For anyone who knows Steve you’ll know that his wine knowledge is only shadowed by his record collection so we obviously had to ask him to jump on the decks after the tasting.
Tasting will run 6 - 8pm. The Tasting will run 6 - 8pm. Wines by the glass, tasty food and music until 11pm.
Please book a space by filling in the form below.
From a long-running family of vignaiolo, Fabio Ferracane has lived in Marsala on Sicily’s west coast his whole life. From his father he inherited three hectares, to which he has added a couple more of his own - all of them enjoy being drenched in sun pretty much year-round and are both remote and secluded.
His parcels of vines are split across two locations; those planted over sandy soils a few steps away from the ocean, looking out over the salt pans to the Stagnone Islands, and those a little further inland, sat in a valley over calcareous clay, amongst a patchwork of rolling hills that are close enough to still feel the effects of the maritime breeze. For the most part he grows the Sicilian workhorse grape, Catarratto, but produces wines that are anything but middling or conventional.
Embracing all manner of ancient techniques, ones which Fabio explains predate the export market for sweet Marsala that exploded in the 1800s, they look back in time to create something that ironically, right now, feels incredibly contemporary. Hazy sparkling wines from tart, early-harvest grapes are fermented in their bottles with no disgorgement. White grapes are given long macerations on their skins and aged in amphorae to create musky, exotic amber wines. There is simple, thirst-quenching rosato, and luscious late-harvest wines, made in the passito style.
It follows that the vineyard work harks back to a time long before chemical farming too - all the plants are tended to organically, with grass and flowers allowed to grow along the rows, punctuated by the occasional ploughing. In the cellar Fabio works with a light hand and the range of wines we have selected to import all have no filtration or sulphur input whatsoever. Calling to mind the landscape of this dusty, remote part of Sicily in both their colour and aromas of wild herbs, stone fruits and flowers, their defining trait is the influence of the ocean and its salty breeze, which finds itself embedded in the character of these charming, evocative wines.
