Description
An ancient grape variety, a cross between Moscato and Catarratto, results in a wine with a concentrated and complex aroma. It's cultivated at Regaleali on the hills next to Case Vecchie. Produce it by blending grapes from different harvest times: the part from the early harvest, for freshness and hints of mineral; the part from the later harvest gives it structure.
Producer Description
In 1830, two Tasca brothers bought the "Tenuta Regaleali" (Regaleali Estate), a green oasis in the centre of Sicily, in the ancient County of Sclafani. Since then, generation after generation, we have been custodians of this territory and have shared its fruits with passion.After the two wars of the last century, at a time when Sicily was not known for its agricultural products or for the variety of its territories, we began to make wine on the Regaleali Estate: a fresh, light white wine (among the few that were easy to drink at that time), a red wine with a medium-bodied structure and a very respectable rose9 wine: the three wines on which Regaleali built its fame.In 1959, my grandfather Giuseppe Tasca d'Almerita planted Perricone and Nero d'Avola vines on the San Lucio hill, investing in a future that few Sicilians could imagine at the time. He thus created the basis for the first single vineyard wine in Sicily: the "Riserva del Conte" (Count's Reserve) - later called Rosso del Conte by all - and the 1970 vintage was launched on the market. A red wine of particular longevity, it is still today an icon of the estate.The early 1980s saw the birth of Nozze d'Oro (Golden Wedding), a white wine from native grapes (Inzolia and "Sauvignon Tasca"), capable of ageing for a long time in the bottle. Towards the end of the same decade, my father Lucio Tasca had the felicitous intuition to bring to Sicily the most internationally acclaimed grape varieties, to compete with the largest wineries in the world. After a few experimental harvests, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay were born, the first that were produced in Sicily: wines that opened the door to earning our high reputation abroad.From that moment on, we also began to enhance several local varieties, vinifying them as single-variety wines: Nero d'Avola, Catarratto, Perricone (typical of the area), Nerello Mascalese and Grillo.Since 2001, I have been entrusted with the task of leading the family business, with the explicit desire to leave our children and grandchildren a better environment than the one we have inherited, strengthening our historical vocation for quality and continuous experimentation.Regaleali, an estate of almost 600 hectares, 12 types of different soils, 6 hills between 450 and 850 metres above sea level, should be understood as an island in its own right, a monopole to be studied and understood with great precision. All our wines come from a single vineyard, or from more than one vineyard, but always within the same estate.Now it is time to learn even more about the details of this piece of land (which my grandfather Giuseppe called the "blessed hills of Regaleali"): investigating the deepest aspects of the very close Wine/Vine relationship, the complex interactions between the individual vineyard plots and the great biodiversity of the natural environment in which they are immersed.