The Carricante vines of Contrada Caselle were planted between 1895 and 1898 by the Chiarenza family, presided over by Don Paolo Chiarenza, on the eastern slope of Etna above the village of Milo. For generations the vineyard was worked by hand in the traditional Etnean manner, and its fruit was sold as bulk wine to negociants in Riposto, who exported it largely to France for blending. The Cosentino family acquired the parcel in the 1960s and continued the same practice. The modern chapter of this vineyard’s story began in 1988, when Giuseppe Benanti engaged the young Salvo Foti as oenologist and agronomist. Foti negotiated to source Carricante from the Caselle parcel and vinified it into the Benanti Pietramarina, a wine that became a touchstone for the entire Etna DOC and demonstrated definitively that Carricante could rival the great whites of Italy and beyond. Foti remained with Benanti until 2011, during which time the Pietramarina achieved legendary status. Alfio Cosentino began bottling his own wine from the parcel in 2007. In 2016, working now directly with Salvo Foti, he released the first vintage under the Vigna Don Paolo label — named in tribute to Don Paolo Chiarenza, who first planted these vines. The project restores the Cosentino family’s rightful authorship over one of Etna’s most historically significant parcels.
The vineyard occupies a single parcel in Contrada Caselle, in the municipality of Milo on the eastern slope of Mount Etna, at 800 meters above sea level. Milo is the only commune entitled by regulation to produce Etna Bianco Superiore DOC, a designation reserved for Carricante-dominant wines from this specific zone. The eastern face of Etna is geologically and climatically distinct from the volcano’s other slopes: it receives substantially more rainfall, carried on humid winds from the Ionian Sea, and its soils are dominated by sandy volcanic material rich in ripiddu — the light, porous pumice and lapilli that fall from the volcano’s frequent eruptions. This combination of volcanic mineral wealth, high elevation, humidity, and extreme diurnal temperature variation produces Carricante of a completely different character from what the island’s warmer zones yield: wine of electric acidity, saline minerality, and remarkable longevity.
The soils of Contrada Caselle carry an exceptional concentration of ripiddu and volcanic pumice rich in olivine — a mineral compound of silica, iron, magnesium, and potassium that Foti and others identify as a primary contributor to the saline, mineral complexity that defines the finest Etna Bianco Superiore. The vines are ungrafted, planted at a density of 9,000 vines per hectare, and now exceed 125 years of age.
The vineyard is farmed sustainably using exclusively traditional Etnean methods. The vines are trained in the ancient alberello etneo — the free-standing bush form indigenous to Etna, here supported by poles of locally sourced chestnut wood from the mountain’s forests, as has been the practice for centuries. No mechanical cultivation is possible on this terrain; all work is done by hand. The great age of the vines naturally limits yields and concentrates the fruit. Harvesting takes place in the first and last weeks of October, among the latest on the mountain, a reflection of the elevation and the slow, cool ripening of the eastern slope.
Vinification is overseen by Salvo Foti, the oenologist whose six-decade relationship with this parcel makes him its most intimate interpreter. A small quantity of sulfur is added before fermentation to protect the juice and orient the indigenous yeast population. Whole-cluster direct pressing is followed by a 30-hour static sedimentation to clarify the must. Alcoholic fermentation lasts 15 to 20 days. The wine is aged entirely in stainless steel for 12 months, a choice that preserves the pure mineral and saline character of the Contrada Caselle terroir without the intervention of wood. Light filtration is applied before bottling, with a small dose of sulfur added for stability.
