Producer: Enoliti Botanici
Region: Catalonia, Spain
Materials: Zibbibo, Juniper Berries, Hibiscus Flowers, Mint Leaves, Pimento, Bitter Orange, Mandarin, Grapefruit, Citron
Viticulture: Sustainable
Category: Vermouth, Fortified Wine
Size: 500ml
A first edition of this new 'enolith' aperitivo, Magarà was created to speak to the lighter, fresher side of aromatized wines: this one has intensely summery notes of ripe strawberry, rhubarb, peppermint and spearmint.
The base wine is natural Zibbibo sourced from Valdibella in Monreale; main botanicals added are allspice fruit ("myrtle pepper"), peppermint, juniper berries, lemon and other citrus fruits, and karkadè flowers. As always with Enoliti Botanici, this is unfined and unfiltered, with zero SO2 added.
Magarà is excellent in a light spritz mixed with good Prosecco or other high-quality white sparkling wine.
Enolites – or enoliti in Italian – is the ancient word for medicinal wines, also called ‘tinture vinosi,’ spoken about as far back as Hippocrates in the ancient Greek world. Enoliti Botanici, a young project based in the province of Ragusa in Sicily, re-establishes this ancient tradition by producing versions as close to what the makers imagine these ancient elixirs might have been. In terms of understanding what these beautiful products really are, then: aromatized wines that are akin to precursors to what we now know as amaro, vermouth, and aperitivo. These aren’t fortified, colored, mass-produced digestivi and aperitivi: they are simply base wines with very precise amounts of delicately made, cold-macerated botanical extractions blended in.
