Murgo, Metodo Classico Brut Rosé Sale

Murgo, Metodo Classico Brut Rosé

“March Madness” may be in the rearview mirror, but we’ve got another Cinderella story for you today: That of Murgo’s Brut Rosé, a true “giant-killer” in the world of sparkling wine. This obscure Champagne-method sparkler from the slopes of Sicily’s Mount Etna is undaunted by the great Pinot Noir-based rosés of Champagne.

The Murgos have their local Nerello Mascalese grape—increasingly touted as Italy’s answer to Pinot Noir—and they’ve got the soils and the climate to produce a sparkler of serious mineral depth and mouth-watering nerve. And yes, they do it for about half the price of quality rosé Champagne. Aged a full two years on lees before bottling and vintage-dated to boot, this is championship-grade wine masquerading as an also-ran. We’ve got the new-release 2019 ready to roll as well as a smaller tranche of the 2018, which, after tasting the two side-by-side, confirmed something else for me: The wine can age, too! That’s downright incredible at this price point, which is why Murgo has been a perennial SommSelect favorite. “Over-delivers” doesn’t do it justice!

 

As longtime subscribers know—since we’ve offered just about every wine they make—the Scammacca del Murgo family is one of Mount Etna’s longer-term tenants. Baron Emanuele Scammacca del Murgo, a longtime Italian diplomat, decided to re-dedicate his family’s property to wine production back in 1981, a time when Etna wine was little talked-about—most of what was produced from the ancient vineyards here was sold to cooperatives for bulk wine. In the eighties, there were maybe a half-dozen serious commercial producers in the area, but of course it’s been a total gold rush since then; these days there are more than 100 producers of Etna wine, with larger Sicilian wine concerns and many other further-flung producers clamoring to get a piece of the action.

The still-erupting Etna volcano is among the few pockets of Europe untouched by phylloxera, and its soils of black ash and pumice stone are planted mostly with old, head-trained bush vines called alberelli (“little trees”). Vineyard altitudes on the volcano reach up to 1,000 meters, making it some of the highest-elevation viticulture in Europe and the only ‘cool’ region of Sicily, which otherwise has more in common with North Africa than much of mainland Italy when it comes to climate. The local Nerello Mascalese grape, the driving force of Etna reds, has rightly invited comparisons to Pinot Noir from Burgundy, and, as expressed in sparkling form, it delivers a great mix of bright fruit and smoky savor.

Sourcing 100% Nerello Mascalese from their high-altitude vineyards in Zafferana Etnea, on the eastern slopes of the volcano—a less populous area of wine production compared to the more densely planted north slope—the Murgos macerate the grapes on their skins for about 24 hours to extract the delicate salmon-pink color, then produce the wine in the exact same manner as Champagne (metodo classico is the Italian term for ‘Champagne method,’ wherein the second fermentation is carried out in the bottle). This wine was aged on its lees (the spent yeast cells that collect in the neck of the bottle) for two years before it was disgorged and re-corked for sale. 

Murgo’s Brut Rosé is always a vintage-dated wine, and the 2019 release is loaded with tart red fruits, florals, and lots of spice. The color is a textbook pale salmon-pink with coppery highlights, and the aromas mix dried cherry, red currant, strawberry, melon, pink peppercorn and a whiff of smoke. Perhaps it’s the volcanic soil but there’s a pronounced mineral savor here, especially on the finish, and taut structure—not only is it an exceptionally refreshing apéritif to sip with some prosciutto and melon, it would absolutely stand in for rosé Champagne at the dinner table (this is even more true of the ’18, which has had time to put on a little weight and develop more depth of flavor). Serve this in all-purpose white wine stems or open-mouthed flutes at 45 degrees, at any point in a meal, really: It would be off-the-charts good with the attached salmon puffs recipe, so maybe start with that. Many more opportunities await!