Multi-purpose Donnafugata, `ben Rye 2022 37.5cl Collection [F4biQID7]

Country: Italy  Region: Sicily  Vintage: 2022

Category: Red Wine  Colour:  Red

Producer: Donnafugata

Donnafugata Ben Rye 2022 "One of the most appreciated sweet Italian wines in the world". Notes from Donnafugata: "Made from Zibibbo grapes, grown on vines trained using the traditional “alberello pantesco” bush-training system, awarded World Heritage status by UNESCO. Brilliant...Strange to say, no Passito di Pantelleria has yet featured in our Best in Show selection, so we’re delighted to rectify the omission this year with this 2023 wine. It’s made, of course, with Muscat of Alexandria grapes (locally called Zibibbo) which are laid out on mats in the sun after harvest to dessicate and dry for about four weeks. The wine is a rich golden sunset orange. Oranges, too, set the tone for its astonishing, perfume-like aromas: once smelled, never forgotten. On the palate it is thick, liquorous and unctuous, though still bright with that intense orange fruit. In some sweet wines, sheer intensity of sugar substitutes for complexity. Not here. It’s almost as if the force of Pantelleria’s near-African sunlight has engraved the wine with layers and lessons of its own.