Olly Smith's Pick Of The Bunch

‘Top Red’ for Planeta

Olly Smith, Mail Online, 31 January 2015:

Last week Olly selected Planeta Santa Cecilia 2010 as his ‘Top Red’ in the Mail’s ‘Pick of the Bunch’ round up: “A red bursting with black cherry and pomegranate fruit with a discreet aniseed awesomeness.”

Santa Cecilia is Planeta’s benchmark red made from local grape Nero d’Avola. The grapes are sourced from the white soils and ancient vines of Noto in the southernmost corner of Sicily. This is the birthplace of the variety, and now the epicentre for its production.

Another of Planeta’s wines – this time a white - was recommended as a top pick to ‘drink with da fishes’:

“Fiano is a grape that creates plumper whites; try if Chardonnay is your usual tipple. Planeta is a quality winery worth looking out for. Its Cometa Fiano 2013 (13.5 per cent) is thrillingly poised between peach and pineapple and great with seafood.”

Planeta has been instrumental in changing the way wine is produced in Sicily: Previously Sicily’s wine producers concentrated on quantity rather than quality, but it was the vision of Diego Planeta that changed all that.

He began to plant experimental plots of vines in the mid-1980s – some international grapes like Chardonnay and Merlot, and a selection of local grapes that had fallen out of fashion.

After extensive research, Diego established the specific terroirs for indigenous grapes like Nero d’Avola, Carricante and Fiano. With the help of his daughter, Francesca, and Nephew, Alessio, he has now created six wineries in different parts of Sicily that serve to highlight these varied terroirs.

As Olly says, “be quick – over the next decade, prices will rise like the sun”: Right now these Sicilian wines offer quality and value “you can't refuse”...

By Chris Penwarden