Monteleone 2022 Etna Rosso Rumex 750mL

We love all the wine we sell at Vino Cammino, but this one's extra special. Just promise us you'll put it away for a few years before you open it (5 years from the vintage is about right to get started). 

Giulia doesn't know how old this vineyard is. But it's more than a century. On it's original rootstock, it's a survivor of phylloxera which sees most of Europe's vines now on phylloxera resistant American rootstock. So if you don't know when a vineyard was planted, how can you date it at all? Well, we know that it survived the eruption of Etna in 1911; it's now surrounded by cooled lava flows that mercifully split and travelled down each side of it. So let's say it's at least 114 years old (in 2025).

The name Rumex comes from the flower on the label, which, along with the namesake of Monteleone's top Bianco, Anthemis, is the first plant to bring life to the soil after a lava flow.

The wine is a brooding mass of tension and complexity. The minerality leans toward graphite with crisp red berries, cherries and black olives. The reason we ask you to put it away for a few years is that it will need time for the toasty oak to integrate. It's delicious now, but you will be richly rewarded as it ages. If these vines have waited more than a century to provided us with this wine, the least we can do is allow it time to show us its best.

Harvested by hand in the early morning to maximise freshness of the fruit. Ageing is in French oak tonneaux for 16 months, followed by 2 months in concrete, and a final 6 months in bottle before release.

Open it with a special meal and a red meat hero.