Today on our Sicilian Food Tour we visit Tenuta Bastonca winery, home to Sicily's only DOCG wine with renowned sommelier Giovanni Carbone as our guide. We wander through the vineyards, taste grapes on the vine, see the barrel ageing rooms and have a leisurely, long lunch with matching wine.
If you take a moment to listen while you're in the barrel room for Tenuta Bastonca organic winery you'll notice something very different happening here. The classical music playing in the background isn't just for atmosphere or effect, it's their test to see if playing music makes for better wine. Each 255 litre or 67 gallon barrel is kept at 21°C or 70°F in this room until it is ready.
Tenuta Bastonca winery is named after “Contrada Bastonaca”, a region long regarded as the heart of Cerasuolo di Vittoria, Frappato, and Nero d'Avola production. Along with grapes the 15 hectare estate also grows the rare Carolea olive. Tenuta Bastonca has three vineyards: this one as well as 2 hectares at Mount Etna and 1 hectare in Pantelleria.
The vineyards here at Tenuta Bastonca winery also look different than Australian trellis style vineyards. Here each grenache vine stands alone. Some grapes are wrinkled and sweet as raisins while others like the Frappato grape are destined for muscat. Any leftover grapes are then crushed to make "poor man's dessert" mostarda (which we tried a couple of days ago in Vittoria).
Giovanni shows us the Palmento, a historic winemaking cellar situated adjacent to the vineyards where the grapes would be delivered to be pressed by donkeys.
We take a seat in the terrace area just near the vineyards, flanked by lemon trees. The weather is perfect for lunch; in fact every day has delivered perfect blue skies. Today we had the morning free so I skipped breakfast and as a result, was famished for lunch.
We start with an antipasto platter with potato croquette, saffron cheese using saffron from Mt Etna, cacioacavollo cheese with orange marmalade and fig jam as well as grilled zucchini, grilled eggplant, two types of local salami and a tomato salad.
Next to this is a simple bread sliced and drenched in wonderful extra virgin olive oil as well as crisp triangles of warm mitilugghia. Mitilugghia is a delicious pane fritto or fried bread with grated cheese and herbs on top. This is paired with a glass of their Grillo Sicilia DOC 2023 wine and Frappato DOC 2023.
Next is a course of ravioli stuffed with ricotta and paired with a tomato based sauce and the softest pork meat and sausage. The meat is so delightfully soft and the sauce is simple but absolutely moreish. This is paired with a glass of the Cerasuolo Classico DOCG 2020, Sicily's only DOCG wine. DOC stands for Denominazione di Origine Controllata or a designation of origin of a product but DOCG wines have a guarantee of higher quality from the Italian government.
And for dessert, a substantial helping of tiramisu!
After a quick break we head out this evening for a visit to an Olive Oil producer Oleificio Gulino. This olive oil producer is busy pressing olives for local farmers and people who bring their olives for processing. We watch the process from when they bring their olives to them being washed in cold water, cleaned and then pressed to create a vivid green oil, so bright that it resembles spinach juice. They can process 5 tonnes of olives per hour.
The 5 generation olive oil business started in 1880 and they specialise in Tonda Iblea olives and for the past 20 years it has won 130 awards. For the last 15 years it has been a sustainable business. The olive pulp and water is used as fertiliser while the crushed seeds are used for fireplace fuel pellets. Olive leaves are used for anti ageing tisanes and the whole factory is solar powered. Any branches of the trees that are not producing olives are removed and made into wood pellets.
After the factory visit we head to the tasting room to try their signature olive oil named Erbesso named after the city. It is their award winning DOP olive oil using their tonda iblea olives. We taste the grassy and vegetal olive oil and smell all of the varieties on offer before buying small stainless steel bottles that are easy to carry home.
With a tiny crescent moon in the sky we head to Carm's cousin's house or “cousin Carm”. "Put your earplugs in boys and girls! The whole family’s here!" says Carm.
Every Summer, 15 members of Carm's family move from Vittoria to this house to escape the heat. They just keep adding rooms to the house as needed. Nonna Maria is here as well as 30 cousins and relatives of Carm's and we introduce ourselves to everyone. They're all very welcoming and warm.
Nonna Maria starts the evening by demoing how to make Sicilian Caponata. There are myriad recipes for this agrodolce eggplant dish that is inspired by Arabic recipes. Nonna Maria puts carrots in hers while some don't but once you taste her caponata you'll want more (and they shared the caponata recipe here).
We watch Marco barbecuing pork and fennel sausages over charcoal and then their family friend shows us how to make buccellati biscotti. The filling is made with dried fruit, nuts and chocolate and it's rolled into a pasta frolla or shortcrust pastry dough. She uses a small pizza cutter to cut little nicks and then pinches these so that have a pretty pattern. Once baked she decorates it with glace cherries and candied cedro and candied cedro (thick skinned green lemons). This sweet is usually served at Christmas time.
After that the spread of dinner is ready and we help ourselves to the buffet selection. There's eggplant parmigiana, caponate, tomato and ricotta scacce, tomato salad, rocket salad, olives, parmigiana, mortadella, prosciutto, salami as well as the Italian sausages and bread rolls all served with Aperol spritzes or soft drinks.
After dinner Nonna Maria demonstrates frying sfinci donuts and they bring around a giant cannolo shell filled with cannoli and freshly roasted chestnuts. We finish our meal before bidding farewell to the family.
So tell me Dear Reader, what is your perfect day made up of?
NQN and Mr NQN travelled to Europe as guests of Vietnam Airlines and NQN was a guest of Sicilian Food Tours but all opinions remain her own.
Sicilian Food Tours
To book the Sicilian Food Tour follow this link. If you use the code NQN when booking (please write it in the date field) then you’ll get a bottle of Cerasuolo Wine from Vittoria, the only DOCG wine of Sicily. This cherry red wine variety is a blend of Sicily’s famous Nero D’Avola & Frappato worth $80AUD.
Vietnam Airlines
Vietnam Airlines offers 23 flights per week connecting Sydney, Melbourne and Perth to Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. Vietnam Airlines is continuing to add new routes having recently announced new flights to Milan, Munich and Delhi.
https://www.vietnamairlines.com/au/en/home
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