This is a late release from Terrazze dell'Etna. The 2014 vintage will be remembered for its intensity and darker colors. The 2014 Etna Rosso Cirneco shows medium-dark richness with garnet background hues. There are mature notes here, but they don't subtract from the wine's overall performance, especially if consumed in the near or medium-term. Dried cherry fruit and plum segue to earth and tobacco. The tannins are dry and dusty over a very lean and somewhat shallow mouthfeel. Don't wait any longer with this 5,000-bottle release.

A very late-release wine, the Terrazze dell'Etna 2012 Etna Rosso Cirneco gives us a glimpse at the cellar potential of Nerello Mascalese. From a hot and dry vintage, the wine opens to a darkly saturated appearance with garnet or browning rims. The wine is aging according to schedule I'd say, with budding tertiary notes of smoke, licorice and cured leather. You also taste the ripeness the fruit with some baked plum and blackberry. It is holding firm, but I wouldn't say that the aging has improved the wine. In fact, I would have preferred to taste younger fruit. Production is 20,000 bottles.

This is Terrazze dell'Etna's top-shelf wine. A pure expression of Nerello Mascalese, the 2011 Etna Rosso Cirneco represents a selection of the estate's oldest vines. This has made for an elegant and softly contoured wine with delicate aromatic layering and evident complexity. You get wild berry, pressed flowers, crushed mineral, licorice and garden herb. The finish shows dry tannins and the kind of lingering sophistication you only get with pre-phylloxera vines. Each plant is rigorously pruned to allow for only two clusters per vine.

I tasted the 2010 Etna Rosso Cirneco (100% Nerello Mascalese) last year and had the chance to revisit the wine again. Since then, not much has changed although my impression is that it has started to flesh out nicely. It shows more spice coloring of cinnamon and clove this year. This is an austere and stubborn wine that plays its cards close to its chest. It reveals crushed stone, dark fruit and grilled herb with slow precision. These qualities bode well for its future evolution. So does the tannic management. The wine is stern, firm and structured. Fruit comes from 60-year-old pre-phylloxera vines that have been pruned down to just two clusters per vine.