2018 Nino Barraco Rosamare

Region: Marsala < Sicily < Italy

Grapes: Nero di Avola

Vineyard/Cellar Stats: Organic farming; 24-hour maceration on the skin, basket pressed then fermented in stainless steel; bottled unfined/unfiltered with no added SO2; 11% ABV

Winemaker: Nino Barraco

NEW VINTAGE ALERT!  RJ Team favorite Campari-esque rosato is back and better than ever! 

Like so many new generation Italian winemakers, Nino took over his family’s vineyards in 2004 and started working organically, using only the native grapes of his Western Sicily, and focusing on single vineyard expressions of the grapes. Note: in Western Sicily, this is all very rare.  As are his wines, which really taste like Marsala, a barren stretch of coastline with dry winds, golden light and an omnipresent sea.  Nino’s wines are aromatically intense, mysteriously light and incredibly saline.

Like this wine, which we call a light red but, given its lit-from-within cherry pink color and 11% ABV, some might call a rose.  Grapes are picked early, in the middle of August, to ensure that the acid is high and the alcohol low.  The juice is gently pressed in old-school baskets, never seeing wood or any sort of manipulation or additive.  The result is an extremely refreshing, transparent wine that exudes cherry and strawberry, with salty, bitter orange Campari notes, that comes alive with air and chill.  

All of Nino’s wine are made in a reductive style to protect them from oxygen, since he adds no sulfur.  Which means this wine can be (but isn't always) a bit onion-smelling when you first open. If you notice, this just know that THIS IS NORMAL.  She just needs to breathe.  Here's what you do: decant into a pitcher – nothing fancy, something with a wide opening. Wait 20 minutes and pour a glass. Smell, sip, enjoy, then pour another glass 30 minutes later.  It will be completely different, more alive.  So cool to watch it evolve!