Corinto Nero comes from the lands of the homonymous polis of ancient Greece: it is a vine with low yields, with sparse clusters, small berries, thin skin, red tending to purple, and almost completely devoid of pips. It was called by Pliny the Elder "black sea grape". Recent genetic and morphological studies on the DNA of Corinto Nero have shown that neither the Italian Corinto Bianco nor the Greek White Korinthiaki are color mutations of the Corinto Nero and therefore related to it. This means that Corinto Nero remains a variety in itself, with very peculiar characteristics.
The story tells that in 1889, when the phylloxera destroyed the vines of half of Europe, the Liparese Corinto Nero survived because it was cultivated in an old crater (Fossa del Monte) with a soil so rich in ash and sand that it did not allow the parasite to take root.
In the past the grapes were used for the production of sultana raisins (passolina), today it is vinified by us in purity and used in the production of Malvasia delle Lipari DOC, to the extent of 5-8%, giving it the characteristic amber color.
The restoration and repropagation of Corinto Nero undertaken in 2005 by Tenuta di Castellaro began with a massale selection carried out on all the oldest vineyards of the seven Aeolian Islands. The variety was then in danger of extinction and the few remaining plants were afflicted by important latent viroses, so Tenuta di Castellaro organized together with an important French nursery, Pépinières Guillaume - specialized since 1895 in the production of quality vine plants (this is of the official nursery of well-known Burgundy companies, above all the famous Romanée-Conti, as well as historical brands of the French wine world such as Moët et Chandon, Château Margaux, as well as Antinori in Italy) - a massale selection that allowed, year after year, to arrive at the reproduction of thousands of healthy and well differentiated vines, plants that today represent for Tenuta di Castellaro a point of reference for the healthy and balanced reproduction of the vines.
The main characteristics of Corinto Nero from an enological point of view are given by its particular morphological characteristics. Being practically devoid of pips, it is therefore also devoid of herbaceous hints and harshness given by the related tannins. It is a grape that yields very little quantity to wine, but which expresses unique characteristics in the Italian wine scene: there is the pure minerality and freshness of a wine born in a continental climate, and at the same time the flavor of the Mediterranean fruit.
The marked acidity, often even higher than 6 g / l, and the low pH - often under parameters of 4.0 - make it a red wine with some characteristics of white wine, and in general more prone to paragons with wines from grapes of distant territories such as Pinot Noir, Vernatsch and Garnacha, rather than other red grape varieties from Southern Italy. You definitely won’t expect this wine from such latitude. The particular gustatory spectrum makes Corinto one of the very few red wines that can also be perfectly matched with fish dishes.
Last but not least, the terroir factor should be considered, which in Lipari is a little equivalent to saying Tenuta di Castellaro, but which in fact greatly affects the yield per wine of all the cultivated varieties and therefore of the wines produced, which are in purity as per Corinth, or the so-called “Proprietary Blend” as in the cases of our Bianco Pumice or Nero Ossidiana. The organic cultivation exclusively with sapling on volcanic sandy soil, very rich in microelements such as residues of volcanic rocks, sulfur and lapilli, the strong temperature range given in particular by the continuous blowing of the proverbial winds of the Aeolian Islands - above all the Mistral - and from the altitude above the sea, together with the peculiarities of varietals such as Corinto Nero, make the production of Tenuta di Castellaro something that goes beyond the genre tags that are usually used to describe Sicilian wines. The wines of Tenuta di Castellaro, with Corinto in the first place, speak an oenological language that is evidently typical of Lipari and the Aeolian Islands as a wine-growing area with characteristics apart from the rest of Sicily and southern Italy in general. 12q.
The development of wines in the cellar has always been carried out according to the personal idea of wine of producer Massimo Lentsch, with the advice of oenologists such as Salvo Foti before and Emiliano Falsini today, and with the aim of intervening according to a concept of contemporary craftsmanship. In the vineyards the indigenous green team of Castellaro try to accompany the vineyards, not to control nature. In the same way in the cellar local cellar master Sebastiano Orifici has the goal to maintain the value of the quality of the grapes harvested vinifying it and then elevating the wine produced according to a style that reflects its territory, its gastronomic tradition, avoiding chemical products and adjuvants.
The combination of all these components, in addition to the mysterious beauty that only legendary places such as the Aeolian archipelago can evoke, result in wines such as those of Tenuta di Castellaro.
