Organic and unfiltered, this Nero d’Avola natural wine is pure and powerful, with flavours of kirsch and Cuban cigar

Unfiltered, not clarified, and not stabilised – that’s the raw Nero d’Avola wine from the hills of Palermo. Fermented in stainless steel tanks, it preserves the pure taste of the grape. In the mouth, it’s full of bursting flavours of kirsch and stewed strawberry. But if you leave it in a glass for fifteen to twenty minutes and smell it, the wine will come back with a mesmerising scent of Cuban cigars and dark chocolate.

Normally, winemakers filter the wine before bottling, and add organic or chemical “clarification agents” to remove little particles left over from fermentation. It is a safe process used in the vast majority of wineries, though it of course affects the taste. Salvatore Tamburello decided to make a pure Sicilian wine that tastes like it used to generations ago, before the modern chemistry took over. His winery’s organic certified, but the “306N” takes its journey to the natural purity one step further.

Salvatore’s vineyard deserves a special mention. It’s planted an hour away from Palermo, near Poggioreale – a ghost-town that was wiped out by a devastating earthquake in 1968. To us, the work of Salvatore and his team signifies the values of endurance and hard labour, ultimately rebuilding their communities in Sicily and creating this delicious wine.

Winemaking

Grapes are grown organically – without any chemicals – on twenty year old vines, and harvested by hand in the second half of September. The wine is fermented in stainless steel tanks. Its aged for twenty months, again in stainless steel tanks, to preserve the varietal aromas and flavours of the Nero d’Avola grape.

Tasting notes

Deep ruby colour. On the nose, this Nero d’Avola offers refreshing aromas of dark sour cherries, strawberries and pomegranate, notes of rosemary and lose leaf black tea, underpinned by tar and Cuban cigar tobacco. In the mouth, this wine is dry, with mouth-watering acidity, medium alcohol and velvety tannins. It offers a taste of stewed cherries and strawberries, as well as spicy herbs and dark chocolate.

Awards

Decanter World Wine Awards 2021 – Bronze Medal (2018 vintage) | The WineHunter – Rosso (2018 vintage) | 5StarWines (Vinitaly) Sustainable Wines Competition – 90 pts (2017 vintage)