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Hello, and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You. How is everybody doing today? I am Melanie, I'm your host. I'm feeling pretty good. I just came back from a wonderful trip. So we're gonna have a little travel themed show today. What some wine to wet your appetite for travel and good wine and food, and hopefully to cross a destination off your travel bucket list. Yes, we're talking about Sicily. I don't know about you, but I have always wanted to go to Sicily.
Lucky me.
I've been four times hosted wine trips because this many of you know. I also write about wine and host another show called The Connected table. Many of you may have seen Cicily in the Red Hot or should say White Hot series on television HBO show White Lotus, which has several series, but season two was filmed in Sicily at a hotel that is actually fictitious, but it's there in the town of Taramino.
I don't know what the name of it.
Was in the show, but it was the San Domenico Palace, which is a four seasons hotel where the show was filmed.
We're going to talk about Sicily.
We're not going to talk about White Lotus because that show is fabulous, by the way. But what I will say is the White Lotus effect has had a major
impact on tourism to Sicily. How do I know that because we were in the area where White Lotus was filmed for the past ten days more or less, more or less, and people told us there that the Sicily and this particular area which is in the northeastern part of Sicily, which is a very very large island that locals call it a continent, that they've seen tourism increase
two hundred percent. So what does that mean to you, Well, you probably don't want to go in high travel months like August and even September is quite busy, but if you want to go in the beautiful shoulder seasons or even in early spring, where I have been to Sicily and I believe April or May, and it's gorgeous. And I was just there in September just as harvest was about to begin, so that's always special for me. It's a great time to visit. And also if you're lucky,
airfares are lower. So we're going to talk about Sicily, and we're specifically going to talk about the region I most recently went to. So I've been to Sicily, as I said, four times. I have flown into Palermo, which is a major city to the north and fabulous, and this time I flew into Catania, which is a port city more in the southeast.
They are miles apart.
So I just want to tell you this is I just cautioned a very dear friend who's going to go visit Sicily. Don't think you can do it all in
a week. It's a very big island, as I said, locals call it a continent, and you either drive for hours and hours to get where you want from one end to the other, or you fly, which is what I would recommend, But what I really recommend is like with all countries, whether it's France or Spain or Italy, unless you have the time and the patients to do what they call the grand tour of the entire area and see a lot of things a little bit of time, or a lot of things in a lot of time,
but spend very little time in each pick an area, concentrate it and dig in and as the Italian soil like to say, enjoy la dolcia ferniante, which is just enjoy the simple life of doing nothing. Because too many of Americans simply love to plan and plan and plan and plan, and we're so busy planning and checking places to see off our bucket list. Do we ever really
relax and have a good time. Probably not, right. So I'm going to talk to you about where I was recently in Sicily and if you visit, but more importantly, I'm going to talk about what you can enjoy about this area in your own homes, which is the wonderful, really wonderful Etna doc wines. Okay, so, uh, picture Sicily. I'm going to give you a little picture of Sicily. It is Okay, where is it. It's off the toe
of Italy's big boot in the Mediterranean Sea. It's to the south the Terranean Sea and the Ionian Sea, so it's got three c's. Actually parts of Sicily to the west northwest of Sis you're actually closer to Africa and you'll see a lot of Arabic influences. To the western part of Sicily. To the eastern part, you're going to see more Greek influences. It's really really interesting. We flew to the city of Katanya. It's got a great airporg and it was super busy. So if you're flying, be
prepared for packed planes. Take some carrot sticks or you know, chopped up fresh veggies to snack on, because you will not get any food, or you'll get really bad food if you're flying an economy, which we did, and be prepared for long lines. Just be patient because there will be long lines. But once you get to Katanya and you get outside the airport, it's quite beautiful. A lot of people don't spend any time in Katanya, which is the major way to get to the area of northeastern Sicily,
which I'm going to discuss today. David and I spent an entire day there. We spent an night and a day there, and we just admired all the beautiful Baroque architecture of the many churches. There is an incredible fish market where you will see the most amazing arrays of fresh fish that will then be served to you at that little cafe down the streets.
That's right.
A lot of great eating places, and there's a port and parks, and we found Katania to be wonderful and we would recommend if you're going to visit at least take a day or a night maybe at the end of your trip to chill and enjoy Katanya. Okay, we rented a car. I like to be free and easy, and we were stopping and visiting winery, so that was
my choice. But there's some very good tour organizers in Sicily that can help you get around and visit wineries with now having to do anything except to sit back and enjoy the view, enjoy the food, and enjoy the wine at the wine tours is one if you're really into wine. And I have no business affiliation with any of these. Wish I did, but I don't, So if you're really into volcanoes I happen to be. I've traveled to many volcanic regions. I happen to like volcanic wines.
These wines, you know, express the tearawa of their area, which is a lot of minerality because the volcanic soul has a lot of minerals in it. It's nutrient rich. It's really fabulous. I like these wines a lot. They have a lot of character to them. They don't like follow on your palate like a wet sponge. They kind of lift up your palette and they go really well with food. And the wines around Mount Etna, which is Europe's largest and still active volcano located where in Sicily,
produces some great wines. So just across my volcanic my volcano bucket list, visits off my list to share with you. I've been to Pompeii in Campana, which is now a dormant volcano with a great museum to the great eruptions that took place. Really kind of amazing. You see petrified bodies, and the wines are great around there. I've been to Hawaii. I've been to two volcanoes in Hawaii on the Big Island and on Maui and now I've been to Etna.
The volcanoes in Hawaii are still active, particularly one on the Big Island, Mount Nana.
It's pretty active.
In fact, a few weeks before we left for Sicily, it erupted. And when that happens, the airport is closed. So just know that, you know, if you're planning a trip there could be an eruption.
And think about the people who live there.
I asked them, how do you feel living in the shadow of a volcano that is still quite active and shows her struff because you call volcanos her because they're part of Mother Nature, and you can see her pumping out the smoke and pumping out the fumes. And they just shrug and say, that's life. And you know, that's why the Italians seem to be a lot happier than Americans. They live in the shadow of an active volcano. It could explode any time, cover their properties with you know,
volcano ash bury their homes. But that's life, you know. They live Ladulcho Ferniente. I live in the shadow of hurricanes and New Orleans same latitude. In fact, this is interesting. New Orleans, where I live now, has one of the greatest and largest Sicilian American populations. Maybe that spirit of shit, it could happen, life happens, is why New Orleans is so much fun. Back to Sicily, Okay, they call in Sicilian dialect mount Enna amuntan a montagna. It is a
big mountain. It is very high and what's really neat. You can see it from the airport, Cantania airport. You can see it driving around and it is like the centerpiece of northwest northeastern Sicily. It's the centerpiece. To the north where White Lotus was filmed is tay or Mina
Ta r i m Na. This is a very steep, beautiful resort area overlooking the sea, and this is a great place to stay if you want to enjoy the sun, if you want to climb on ruins, if you want to see beautiful gardens, if you want to live la dolcea vita. That's right, that's sweet life. Because of Italian so how to do la delca farnietna farniente the sweet life of doing nothing, and they like to live la
delcha vita, the good life. We drove first, we went on an organized tour that was hosted by the Consortio of the region of Etna DOC. We want to thank them for hosting us, because otherwise we couldn't have done this trip. It's a consortio per la tutta la de vini Etna DOC. What does that mean if you're not familiar with wine, Well, a DOC is actually a very important designation. It's it's a PDO, a protected designation of origin in the European Union. In Italian, it means the
nomina nazioni do orgini control lata. It is a designation of quality, standards and guidelines that help identify and protect wines of a specific area. So Etna DOC, which was established in nineteen sixty eight, so in the history of Etna very young, because wine making dates back centuries. This is a centuries old island that was performed from the sea by the volcano.
The DOC was only established in.
Nineteen sixty eight, and as I said, in European Union terms, that's called PDO protected protected designation of origin in English and established as standards and guidelines that the producers must follow in order to be designated a DOC. At no wine there are other wines made in Etna that may not be DOC. It has no impact on the quality. It has to do on the style and guidelines of
protected production. Those wines are called Terra siciliana. They may be made with grapes that are not part of the doc.
I e.
Reasling in Chordona or pin No noir, which we did while we were visiting. But we're going to get into what makes ETNA unique because we want you and I want you to think about ordering an ETNA wine when you go to a restaurant or asking your local retailer to try it, because you're going to love them. Okay, you're going to love them. These are terrific wines, are terrific food wines, and for those if you want to bring a gift to someone, they're a fun wine to discuss.
Okay. So the DOC is.
Going to include, you know, specifications of what grapes may be used, where they can be sourced, from, locations of vineyards, and as we learn WITHOUTNET, it even designates how high the vineyards can be. They can't be above a certain number of meters. I think it's eight hundred and fifty. So if there's higher vineyards than that, and we saw them and visited them, they can't be part of the DOC doesn't impact quality, it just is the guidelines. There's
also restrictions on level of alcohol and other factors. This enforces the consistency of product and identity for ETNA DOC ATNA DOC wines and their production zones. Many of these it's interesting so end the wines have been EDNA has been making wines for years. Families used to just make them in these very old wineries that are called palmentos. You'll see them dotted around the area. They're old stone
buildings that were very rustic wineries. Yes, that's where you lily crushed grapes with your feet, and you'll see them around. Some are still in disrepair, but many of the wineries and hotels have taken and purchased and acquired these palmenos and turned into some pretty amazing structures. We stayed at a hotel called Etna Quotemile, which has a palmento converted
into a bar area. We visited Planeta, a very famous winery that was also featured in The White Lotus and their big hospitality tasting room at Planeta and the Sharanova Vineyards is a former palmento. We also stayed at a winery Fabulous Wines also called Palmento Costanza. It is actually
still a working, modernized palmento. So Palmento is a important term to know if you go visit Atna wine region because it's the old historic wine production facilities and it's really amazing to tour them and to see how they're being resurrected into hospitality, tasting rooms, offices, dining rooms and for some working wineries. Okay, so those families used to make wines that way, and then you know, some things happened,
like World War two, which devastated Italy. Italy was really impacted terribly by the wars and conflicts, and it became very poor. There was also something called the mafia. Now they've really tried to fight and chase the mafia out of Sicily, but if you've ever seen all those Mafia movies, you know most of them took place in Sicily. Interestingly enough, a lot of the vineyards that were owned by mafia were confiscated and have been taken back and brought back
to life really vendors. There's a whole program under that. So a lot of the vineyards lay in decay and were unused because people couldn't afford to maintain them. A lot of young people moved away to find better economic opportunities elsewhere. There was a huge immigration in the late nineteenth century of Sicilians to America and to New Orleans, which is what has shaped the great population of Sicilia
Americans in New Orleans. And today there are many wonderful restaurants, hotels, businesses, shops, supermarkets that are owned by people of Sicilian heritage. So it's you know, it's amazing. But what's really interesting, So, as I mentioned that DOC was established in nineteen sixty eight, and that kind of started to slowly usher in a new modern era for Sicilian wines. Many were made and you could just go up to the Palmetto and fill
your giant container and bring the wines home. But when the winery started bottling their wine for commercial sale and exporting their wines, things really took off. I would say that for such an old region in many ways, including wine, it's still a fairly new region in terms of discovering the great producers and bottle wines of Sicily of great quality. Because a lot of the people who came and started
bringing back the wines and revitalizing. The vineyards really started finding their way in the early two thousand, so like thirty years ago, thirty five years ago, twenty years ago, kind of young. A lot of the producers we met they started in two thousand and wine. That seems to be a big year. And of course, as you know, it takes a long time for vines to come to fruition.
A lot of the vines that are in Sicily and in Edina are what they call prefiloca, which means they survived the philoshra light of the late nineteenth century, which killed most of the vineyards in Europe. And why is that Because volcanic soils are resistance to flocks up pretty sandy soils. So that's kind of cool because these are very old vines. They're really large, gnurly trunks and branches, and the wines are pretty amazing. So Atna is a very large regions that says, Sicily is a large island
slash conon and it's a very large region. And there's four areas of Na, literally four areas where the slopes produce vineyards that produce wine. There's the north, which is where most of the producers are concentrated. It's known for producing some of the Edna Dock's finest red wines, which
we're going to get into. And that's where David and I, my husband and I kind of based ourselves for our little mini tour after our big press tour, we went to Etna North and specifically because this area is known for three things that we were interested in. One, there's some really great hiking and beautiful parks, and we love to hike because it's a great way to walk off all that you're in cheese you're eating. And Two, some of the finest and well known producers are there. We
wanted to meet some of them. And three it's known for its red wines, and we have but to love both the rennow whites of at in the dock, but these red wines are particularly unique and special and we want to do a deep dive into them. So that's the northern slope. It has very high elevations and in wine terms, what they call the diural diurnal weather ship, which is really great for creating balanced, nurtured grapes. That means warm sunny days, cool mountain air at night really
keeps things, you know, dry. Cooling breezes really Nutrius the grapes, and as I said, while they do grow white wines there and we also tasted some reaslings and charonese are pretty awesome. It's known for its threads. And there's the eastern slope which looks over the Ionian Sea. It's a bit rainier and windier, and here the atna bianci are
at No white wines of the dock are grown. There's a specific little subregion near a town called Milo, which we did not visit, and I want to because there's a couple of dozen producers that produce something called etna bianchi superior wines, and they're really great. It's just all about terrowah. You know, you grow, you grow, and you're a terrewah is you know, which shapes the wine from the land up in the and the ground up, the atmosphere,
the nutrients in the soil. It's a sense of place, and I will say that those wines had a completely sense of place. Then to the south it's more maritime and really more beachy beach weather, as they'd say, So you've got sea breezes a little more humidity, and it's known for the white wines. And then way to the west. There's really a kind of an interesting dry area. I saw two wineries in the southwestern slope and had some very good reds and whites. We actually drove the entire
road around at Noa. We circum navigated the mountain. It was really cool. We saw some beautiful areas. This area is also known let's skip wine for a minute. It's also known for pistachios. They're called the Bronte like the Wuthering Heights Bronte pistachio from the town called Bronte, and they are just the most amazing pistachios. If you go buy them. You can also buy pistachio creme, which is in that canolis. This area is, you know, created the canoli.
Everybody send gives you a canola cannolis with We're caught to cheese. Were caught a cheese which I can face plant in, or pistachio cream or nocciola nut cream. I bought back some pisaschio basil sauce. I can't wait to have it on pasta. It's also known for apples and fruit. We had some very good fruit while we were there, and of course they have a lot of farming for cows and pigs. If you like salumi, you're gonna love it.
Up there in the mountain area to the south in Catania, it's a fish port, and we had the most incredible fish, unbelievable fish. I'm a fish person, I'm a pescataria and I was in heaven. It was September, so we ate a lot of eggplant, because I've learned that in Europe and especially in Italy, you eat what's ever grown and produced within like maybe thirty kilometers where you are, So for us, it was eggplant and cappanata. It's probably one of the most known dishes other than in pasta ala norma,
which is an eggplant lasagna type dish. I've never made either, but I ate a lot of it while I was there because I don't eat meat, and so the easiest substitute for people like me was mushrooms, which were also in season and delicious. They were nutty and wild and eggplant. So I had my fill of eggplant and mushrooms, while David ate a lot of really good beef dishes.
So what are you drinking? This is what you know.
I'm gonna give you the quick and easy if you go the words to know and if you want to try, here's what to buy. Okay, So I've already told you that the doc is important word to know if you're looking for a designation on a bottle. I already told you a little history like the palmento, which is really just something to if you go there, you're kind of cool if you know what it means.
Okay.
Another term you may want to know and respect is lava flow.
And why is that kind of amazing?
Because literally the wines are and the soils and the vineyards are like typed by lava flow.
We'll drive We were driving and Vintnor's.
Would talk about, well, this is a liva flow from sixteen fourteen, and you're having wine that was produced from vines that have been growing in the lava flow of sixteen fourteen. And then we drove and we saw the giant lava flow of nineteen eighty one. They're all named and documented and there are a lot of and what
does the lava flow look like? It looks like a lava flow of giant blackish brownish rocks that shape and tumble down and you just envision it formed over the years, because it doesn't happen quickly, and it covers houses and you can see decay of old houses that were buried in lava flow bury the vines, but nature has a way of coming back, and the vines thrive in the soil that was produced by the lava flow. Every lava flow changes the makeup of the soil and that's what
makes Etna DC wines incredibly specially unique. Just think about that and go with the flow.
As I like to say.
The other is a word called contrata. Now I'm going to make this really easy for you. If you go to Napa Valley or Sonoma, you're know there's Napa Valleys and those are big appellations. Inside there's sub apppalations. There's Oakville, there's Russian River or Sonoma. There's Alexander Valley for Sonoma, there's Petaluma, Gack Soloma. Those are avas within bigger appellations. So in and that's just I'm putting this into context.
So in Atna you have something called the contrata, and the contrata is basically a district that is a measurable district. And I really don't know how they figure it out because there's a map with all the contrata. But it's not like when you're driving you say you're entering the pasha pieshera contrata. It doesn't say that, but everybody who makes and grows grapes knows this. And within a contrata which has a just makes wines of distinct character because
there could be different souls. There are different vineyard plots, and different producers may have different vineyard plots in the contrata. I just say that because it's going to be a term that you will hear if you're traveling into wine country, and you just should know it. So I think there's a another doc in the area. There's four different slopes of production zones, and in the production zones there's a
contrata mini contrata. I have a map of contrata, and then within the contrata are vineyard plots, and those vineya plots may have names, the little the areas the vineyards may have names, and in those vineyards there may be subplots with sub names. That's what creates a and you'll see that name on a wine, which makes it a clue or single vineyard wine. It's all important because you're gonna look for these things when you buy wine on
the label. Okay, this is the easy part. Okay, there's only only four grapes you need to know about at in a doc, which is like, wow, that's really easy, right, Okay, we're gonna start with the white.
Now.
If you love.
If you love sauvignon blanc and pino grisio, but maybe you don't love all sauvign young, sauvignon blanc pinagrecio, because if you've tasted sauvignon blancs from around the world, you know they're very different. Whether it's New Zealand, Chili, Sonoma, or South Africa or France, they're all very different. But if you love those kind of crisp, dry white wines that kind of zing and zip and have lots of citrus notes and a touch of mineral, what is the minerality.
It's the taste of.
The soil and the stone and the herbs, that savory character you're gonna love.
And the duck whites you're just gonna love them. I do, I absolutely love them. They they zip off your they zip between your lips. The main grapes are chiracante, C.
A R. R.
I c A n T.
It's a grape that produces this gray, crisp white wine, and it is the main white grape and wine of Etna. It's often blended in very small amounts.
I think the.
DOC rules allow up to forty percent, but most of the Karakanti I taste it only had ten to twenty percent of codato. I think cat cat arato codado. It's a white grape. It's frequently used to add floral and fruit to balance the herbaceous citrus mineral notes. So you get a little more floral fruit character. If that's what you like, you're gonna like that kind of blend. As I said before, and I let'll say some of the finest wines that are Bianchi, white, Caracanti, and Colorado are
on the slopes of southwest Etna. And there's an area around its area called Milo where there's Etna. Bianco Superior, a special category of white wine, only made a few dozen producers, and it really does taste somewhat different. It's hard to explain. You just need to taste red super easy, and I love these wines. The main grape is called Norello Mascalesi. It is a wine that does really well in cooler climates, so that's why it does really well
in the northern slopes of Etna with higher elevation. It's often compared to a Pino noir okay, pino noir or France or oregon or Nebiolo which is grown in the Piedma area of Italy. These are really meat, great, medium bodied red wines. Again, great minerality, volcanic wine. Just have this zip and zing and just you can just taste or a kind of an herbaceousness, but a mineral character.
That's a good taste.
It's very unique and again lots of dark wild strawberry and raspberry fruit. You could just sip this with many types of food, from lighter you know you fish, to light meat, white meat, pork. Really terrific. Love these wines and if you want something a little more depth and spice kick to it. They many of these wines will add maybe small amounts of another local indigenous as they say,
native grape called noirello capuccio, not cappuccino capuccio. Norello capuccio often used a small announce to add floral fruit and spice to the norello maxcales Sometimes you'll find one hundred percent Norello Capuccio. One example is Bananti Winery, very famous winery. But most of the time you're going to be drinking Karakanti with a little bit of caterato and Narrella Mascalzi
with a little bit of Norella Capuccio. There are some producers like Vienie Franketti, which is a pioneering winery in Edina, North. We visited really terrific wines. They're experimenting with Riaesling and chardonnay as is Planeta doing some experimenting, and they're terrific wines. They are terraced Siciliana, which means they're made in the territory. The grapes are grown and cultivated in the Sicily territory. But they're not in the DOC. It has no indication
that they're poor quality. There are really great wines, they just don't fit in the ETNA DOC guidelines.
So that's what you need to ask for when you were going to a store looking for wines at ETNA DOC. Nirella Mascalesi for the red, Karakanti for the white. Here's a fun fact.
We met a lot of producers eight percent, roughly eight percent of theroducers at the dock now are women. Women own wineries. We met a lot of them. They many of them started. I have inherited the winery in the case of Fayudo Cavaleri, wonderful winery that I went to.
Women own. Others are invested.
The husband and wife will invest in a winery and bring it up really exciting times. So if you visit, what do you need to know? You're going to fly into Cantanya. You're going to either go with a tour, which is perfectly fine, or you'll rent a car. And if you rent a car, it's fairly easy to drive around. I didn't have any troubles. I suggest I highly recommend if you're doing it on your own, to stay in an eno tourism, an anotourism hotel, which is a winery
that has accommodations. Those are so much fun because you can do the tour winery tour, and you can book of tasting and then you can just fall asleep right there at the place at the winery and just you know, have dinner nearby, and you don't have to do a lot of driving around Because I don't encourage drinking after driving. I also encourage spinning and not swallowing when you're tasting wine. So a lot of these wineries are on booking dot Com.
We stayed at Palmento Costanza, a woman owned winery women men. Valeria da Gusto owns it with her husband and her daughter Serena is involved fabulous wines available in the United States. We stayed at her beautiful guest house, which you can book. There was a restaurant a little town nearby called Vendotso where you can go, very historic, where you can go and walk around have dinner. We also went to a
terrific wine bar that Valeria recommended called CoV Ox. In fact, we were there and we saw other wine industry people. It's kind of like the hangout, and it's in a tiny towns called Soilketto. It's really easy to drive around. We stayed one night at Palmento Costanza, and then we
stayed another night. We stated this beautiful place called Etna Quotamilee, which is literally a beautiful hotel with a terrific restaurant located in a literally in a lava field, I mean lava everywhere, and this beautiful natural Parko at the North is nearby. You can go up and hike. We took a picnic, we had a wonderful meal. It's a beautiful place. It's called Etna Quota Meily. The quote Emilia is.
A road.
It's literally a wine route that is where the hotel is located that you can drive, connecting Castilioni to Cecilia to Rendazzo and there's wineries all along it. You do need a point appointments, but we highly recommend at least doing two wineries if you're going to be in this area. How far is it from Taramino. Well, we didn't really go there this trip. We won another trip. It's I
think it's about ninety minutes. It may be less, but you could base yourself with Tiramino and do day trips to wine country, or I would suggest staying in one country and getting the whole experience personally. It was also not very crowded, which I think Tyermino still was, and so we loved not having the crowds. Another we did not stay at this Eno tourism, but I planned to when we come back. Coote Tanera beautiful wines and I
hear they have a wonderful Eno tourism. I'm going to try when I go back to say more Eno tourisms. But I did like that in a quote to me Lee. We also tried a little town called Malvunga.
We stayed in this.
Charming little in Nobody spoke a word of English.
But it was really fun. It was I forgot that it was Arca to look it up.
Oh my god, I'm having a blank. But it was really adorable. I'm going to post it. If you follow me at the connected table on Instagram, I'll be able to tell you. But it was a terrific little It was cold here. It is sorry guys. Uh Larco swany Larco to swan Ye. It was a charming Oh my god, it's charming in We did have to climb a lot of stairs. The owner, Luigi, cooked so much food for breakfast for just the two of us. There was only two of us in the hotel. I got a room
with a balcony. We sat outside and had a picnic and watched Etna all night in a gorgeous sunset. He made us a picnic for the next day. Because he cooked so much food for us, I felt like Lucy in the chocolate factory. I felt like I had to put all his muffins and cookies down my dress to pretend I was gonna eat them. Very generous, the hospitality is incredible. We also visited Vieni Francetti Andrea Fronketty is considered a pioneer for modern Attina wines.
We did a wonderful tour.
They do not offer accommodations, but we did an amazing tasting there and we were given a tour of the different vineyards. And why was that important because we saw how altitude affects the vines. We were lucky. The vines were ready, the grapes, you're ready to be picked. They were trimming the leaves so that the grapes would get a little bit more sun to ripen. It's hard work working in a vine and this was a busy time, so we were grateful that anyone took time to see us.
Our last visit was Planeta, very famous winery featured in the White Lotus, which we're getting back to full circumnavigate to White Lotus.
There was a tour group there. It was a Canadian group.
They even have a sign where they have like where white Lotus was filmed near a vineyard. This is a very famous winery family run by a family that came from Spain. They were actually an aristocratic family from Spain that was bequested the land. They have wineries also in other areas of Sicily, including Vittorio Noto and up in Messina. We tasted wines from all the areas, but we were in their specific Sharon Nova vineyards where we have their
hospitality center. It was really terrific and we stayed at a place called Parcoscotello, really terrific place with a beautiful park, and right next door was one of my other favorite wineries. Literally right next door to the Parcoctella hotel was Donna Fugatta.
Donna Fugata means.
Fleeing Women, beautiful winery. One of the prettiest tasting rooms I've ever been in. You're literally in a glass enclosed square box, you know, tasting room, and you can see the vineyards. This is a company very much into art. Donna Fugatta also has wineries around Italy and that is very well known for it's ben Ray in Pentalaria, beautiful winery. So what's nice is that all of these wineries are fairly located next to each other. As we drove, David
pointed out a few that he had visited. Because we went on our little group wine trip, they split David and Nye up, so we went to different wineries. Petri Dulce is a very modern looking winery that I'd like to go visit when I go back. As I said, Cootenera. Some other wines say No Bananti, very famous wine, one of the legends of the area. Bananti terrific wine. Sees are all available in the United States, really terrific. You can also get I've talked about still wines, but there
are also sparkling wines using Nirello Moscow lazy grapes. They're terrific. Some of the producers that I would recommend. I had Furiato, which is also in the North Area. I went to visited them my last trip. Firiato is probably the largest sparkling wine producer in Etna, and they use the metado classico, which is the same method as they make sparkling wines or champagne and champagne. The meta champagnis It's called metado
classico in Italy. Ioud suggest if you go to spend at least a solid week in Etna.
Doc.
There are things that we didn't do that we would have liked to have done that I would recommend. One is to do a tour up the mountain. We did that our first trip. It was an organized tour. We went up and we looked at one of the giant you know, volcanic bowls as they call them. There's several. You know, there's a peak you can go, people said,
I met people at one of the hotels. We stayed in ill Peak Glow, which is a terrific more of a hotel golf resort in near CASTILLIONI de Cecilia, which is a region but also a historic city, and they were summoning Atna. I don't quite understand what's summoning at and it means because there's various craters, not bowls, craters that shape Atna. But you can book a tour to go see sunrise sunset. I think it would be fabulous. So if we ever go back and have more leisure time,
I would do that. We did it during the day and I will tell you it was a transformative experience walking through that volcanic sandy soil to see a crater. You can also take boat tours up to see another volcano in the Ionian Islands. Yeah, there's another volcano there. Uh. And then of course there are numerous dining tours to try different restaurants and meals of food is terrific. Of course, you will eat pasta and there will be a dish after the pasta, so don't overdo it with the pasta dish.
As I mentioned earlier in the show, this area is known for their wonderful eggplant dishes. Pasta ala norma as the signature dish out on Cheni is one of the great street foods. There's two different versions. It's funny. On one side of Sicily toward Palermo, the Ironcini tend to be round and then over toward Etna and that eastern Partisisiti. They tend to look like big point of caps. I'm not sure why, but it all goes back to origins and style. And the Sicilians love their sweets. The breakfasts
tend to be sweet. Yeah, a lot of cake, a lot of cookies, a lot of you know, pastry type things. I lived on Ricada all the time I lived in Ricotta. Fresh tomatoes and sundried tomatoes and fresh greens every day. That for me is like the greatest breakfast ever in this area. And I probably overdosed on ricotta, best ricada I have ever had.
So it's a beautiful area. I have heard that it's quite busy at Christmas.
I'd love to go. You can actually ski on Mount Etna. If you're into skiing and you really want to take something off your bucket list, you can do something that I call the sea to ski or ski to see. You can go skiing on Mount Etna and then go hang down on the beaches near Catanya further south, and you will have had a sea to ski experience. As
I said, we went in May. It was gorgeous, great time, and we went in September, also gorgeous, great time, a bit hotter, but we also needed a jacket windbreakers up in the Edna North area because it got a little cool. So hopefully I've given you some tips on where to go and what to drink, and I hope you'll give it a shot. It's at the doc at the doc in the beautiful Island, or as they say, conent of Sicily put it on your bucket list, Put it on your sip list and always enjoy with great pleasure and
in moderation. I'm Melanie Young. This is s Fearless Fabulous you. I hope I can share more of my travels with you on future shows. I know some of you have asked about it, and if you want to ask me more questions, you can direct message me and Instagram at
Melanie Fabulous. And do check out at my other show with a Connected Table Live, which I co host with my husband David Ransom, because we interview a lot of wine producers and we will be talking about at a trip more in wine talk and we are going to be featuring some of the producers that I have mentioned on that show coming up, so you can follow us there on Instagram at the Connected Table. Thank you for joining me. Remember you can choose to live life on
your terms. Choose living fearless and fabulously. Always stay as I say on my other show and say she'll be curious, and remember that travel is probably the best education you'll ever have, So go on and explore the world and say we'r every moment.
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