98pts James Suckling - #23 Top 100 Wines 2025

The remarkable floral style includes bright, leesy character, deep blood oranges, red cherries and cinnamon. Fleshy palate with full body, crisp and refreshing acidity and velvety tannins with a slightly dusty yet ripe texture. Very well-packed, fine-tuned and long. Drinkable now but best from 2026.

97pts Vinous - #5 Top 100 Wines 2025

The 2023 Etna Rosso San Lorenzo is surprisingly rich and spicy in this vintage. Cloves and cinnamon sticks combine with hints of cherry sauce and blood orange. This is elegant in style, with seamlessly silken textures and depths of ripe red berry fruits that saturate the palate in primary concentration. Powerful and potent, the 2023 finishes with extreme length and a staining of liquid lavender that lingers for well over a minute. The 2023 is unlike any San Lorenzo I've yet tasted. This has unbelievable depth.

Tasting Notes

This wine displays a ruby to deep ruby color with a penetrating, lively bouquet of rich, ripe fruit and spice. The palate is structured, full, and complex, with a smooth, well-integrated tannic texture, making it an excellent match for meat and seasoned cheeses.

Color: Deep ruby red

Aroma: An intense yet delicate bouquet of spring flowers, with lingering persistence

Palate: Broad and full-bodied, rich and well-structured, supported by a vibrant acidity that enhances its complexity

Food Pairings: Meat dishes and pasta with robust, hearty sauces

About the Wine

Nerello Mascalese, the varietal which is unique to Sicily. The volcanic soils from Mt Etna play a role in making deep, dark and concentrated red cherry fruit but at the same time bright, and downright refreshing. The purity of fruit is so impressive.  Organic.

Vineyard Notes

Etna Rosso San Lorenzo comes from 7 hectares of vineyards in the district of the same name in the municipality of Randazzo. In some parcels, the vines are over 70 years old, the altitude is 750 meters above sea level, and the soil is almost pure volcanic sand. The estimated production of the old vines is around 60 hectoliters.

The terroir of the San Lorenzo district was formed by lava flows and volcaniclastic deposits related to the effusive and explosive activity of the Ellittico eruptive center, approximately 60,000 to 15,000 years ago. Although very young in geological terms, the Ellittico soil is the oldest surface layer on which it is possible to plant. The reason is simple: millennia of lava flows have buried the older soils, leaving, in effect, only small and rare portions of Ellittico soil. On the northern slope of Etna, there are five or six Contrade (districts) that have "Ellittico" terroir. Three soils, however, are spurious, as the igneous nature of the Ellittico has mixed with alluvial, sedimentary soils resulting from the overflowing of the Alcantara River. On the northern slope of Etna, only three of the hundreds of Contrade have "pure" Ellittico terroir: Bocca d'Orzo, Calderara, and San Lorenzo.

San Lorenzo marks the northwest border of the Etna DOC and therefore has the coldest climate of the DCC. This climate, combined with soils rich in ash, creates a unique and unrepeatable combination. Wines that simultaneously embody vigor and generosity in a sumptuous tension. Fine wines.

Winery Notes

Tenuta delle Terre Nere is the fruit of over 30 years of passion and work in the world of fine wine.

And an extraordinary location, as well - this "island within an island" that is the Etna. A place where nature is prodigal but also severe. And here they try with all their heart to express as purely as possible the refined and multifaceted microcosm of this ancient volcanic land. With respect, care and hard farm work, always in organic balance.

Organic