Vino Di Anna

Anna Martens and Eric Narioo started making wines on Mt. Etna in 2008, after years of touring the world making wines for the likes of Petaluma in the Adelaide Hills, Ornellaia in Coastal Tuscany, and Passopisciaro on Etna. It was at Passopisciaro as assistant winemaker from 2005-2008 that Anna feel in love with the idea of Etna. She was a central figure in pushing the Contrada (Single Vineyard) system that we know today forward. Leading some of the first tastings on the island to drive the narrative of the sites.

In 2010, the couple purchased their first two old alberello vineyards, one in contrada Crasa, opposite an old farmhouse, they now call home, the other in the isolated contrada Piano Filici above the village of Rovitello. In 2011, they bought the neighboring property which included an abandoned wine building, the ruins of an Etnean palmento and overgrown terraces. They set out to gradually restore the buildings, palmento and replant the land, seeking and purchasing small plots of isolated vines as they went along.

Today, with a team of locals, they farm regeneratively, eight hectares of terraced land, divided into small vineyard plots scattered across the north and northwestern face of the volcano, at varying altitudes. Century old olive trees, cherry, apple, pear, peach, apricot, almond, walnut and chestnut are interspersed amongst the vines. Work is extremely labor intensive with all activities being done by hand and no agrochemicals used. In the cellar, wines are produced with minimal intervention; fermentation conducted by indigenous yeasts at ambient temperature. No additives are used. Wines are vinified and aged in lava stone, large chestnut and oak casks, Georgian qvevri ( The first of which was gifted to them by Pheasant Tears own John Wurdeman), glass and stainless steel. Wines are naturally clarified by gravity, and are not fined or filtered in anyway