Badalucco de la Iglesia Garcia "Griddu Verde" Sicily, Italy 2020

FROM HAUS ALPENZ:

THE WINE: A blend of Grillo and Verdejo. The wine that best captures Badalucco de la Iglesia Garcia's Dos Tierras project, 'Griddu Verde' marks the 'second pass' of old-vine Grillo ('Griddu') from the renowned Contrada Triglia. Co-fermented with Verdejo planted in Contrada Coreleo more than twenty years ago, when Pieropaolo and Beatriz first returned from Spain to Sicily, it also offers a sly allusion to the co-mingled history of the island—the Kingdom of Two Sicilies—and its centuries' long Iberian influence.

THE PRODUCER: Pierpaolo Badalucco and Beatriz de la Iglesia Garcia began Dos Tierras, their singular winemaking project, upon his return to western Sicily and Contrada Badalucco in 2000. They began slowly, restoring ancient vineyards and scouring the countryside for examples of perpetuo, the oxidative perpetual wine that could be found in homes of the local contadini farmers more than two millennia before the arrival of the British and the introduction of fortification. Adherents of Ingham's seminal Decalogo, his family had produced Marsala in the small village of Petrosino from 1880 until the late 1960s, when his father and grandfather grew disillusioned with the industrial direction of the appellation. Piero & Beatriz renewed his family's commitment to Ingham's precepts, especially to the importance of la basa Marsala, the 'alto grado' base wine that is essential to region's greatest expressions, fortified or unfortified. In this, they were blessed with a three-hectare plot in Contrada Triglia, a celebrated zone less than 200-meters from the Mediterranean Sea that is universally recognized as 'ground zero' for the greatest Grillo on the island.

Badalucco de la Iglesia Garcia farm this plot and others along biodynamic and regenerative lines and now have 10.5 hectares under vine. Varieties include: Grillo, Catarrato Lucido, Grecanico and Verdejo, as well as Nero d'Avola, Tempranillo and some of western Sicily's best olives. (The Verdejo and Tempranillo were part of the agreement which convinced Beatriz to move to Sicily from her beloved Spain, thus 'Dos Tierras', or 'two lands'.) All are planted selection massale, and everything in the vineyard and cellar is performed manually, by hand (or foot), in keeping with three generations of Badalucco winemaking before them. The quality of the grapes, and especially the skins, is paramount, and all wines are produced entirely from 'free-run' juice. These reach their apotheosis in two wines, XI - Perpetuum and Pipa ¾, unfortified but long aged, oxidative expressions of rare energy and savor that are and among the best of their kind, from Marsala and beyond.