A huge hit from June... we snagged another round!

Feudo Montoni Catarratto 2018

Sale $21.99

Buy 3 or more pay $19.99

92 pts Vinous

While the name, grape and background are interesting, what I find compelling about this wine is how uniquely delicious it is. Italy, particularly Sicily in this case, is blessed with a plethora of indigenous grapes and small producers willing to make their living preserving their heritage. In a sea of familiar and at times, uniform, flavors, it is refreshing to taste something that is, well… different.

What’s truly exciting is you don’t need to be a sommelier or wine geek to enjoy a bottle like this. You might need to be one to pronounce it or be able to rattle off the different sub-varieties of the Catarrato grape. But to enjoy it? All you need is a glass.

Ready to explore? Move beyond your comfort zone? But trust me, you will still be quite comfortable…

Aromas of orange blossom, pink grapefruit and guava mingle with earthier notes of freshly cut grass and wild herbs, in that way only Italian whites seem to do. Fruit… earth… a round mouthfeel, yet cut through with bright acidity. Refreshing, yet substantive. Food? Absolutely, thanks for asking! I’ll have an antipasti platter filled with local cheeses and cured meats, some eggplant caponata, oohhh grilled sardines please! And definitely Pasta alla Norma, one of Sicily’s famed dishes. Click on the Pic for a recipe.

"Medium deep straw yellow with golden tinges. Ripe aromas and flavors of apricot, balsamic oils, bergamot and guava. Round and tactile but also very fresh in the mouth with hints of orange oil complicating flavors of grapefruit and mountain herbs in the mouth. Finishes long, multilayered and dense. An outstanding Catarratto. Owner Fabio Sireci tells me these are old vines of the Catarratto Lucido variety, a rare situation as the grape produces very little at the heights these vines are planted (roughly 750 meters above sea level). Still, it smells and tastes of the Lucido variety and so I’m not arguing."


Or reply. The wine is available now in Chapel Hill. Friday afternoon, as ordered, in Hillsborough.