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.

This sun-kissed, oxidative wine is produced from 'terra rosa', seaside vineyards in accordance with biodynamic and regenerative principles. Harvested just as the skins begin to turn orange, the wine is foot-trodden and its 'free-run' juice fermented with native yeasts in stainless steel tanks, with 12-15 days on its skins. It remains on its lees in a host of 500L casks of oak, acacia and chestnut for up to 18 months, without topping up, and is bottled without fining or filtration.

Vibrant and complex, this autumnal wine serves as point-of-entry into the long history of the island's oxidative, perpetuo wine tradition, its notes of orange blossom, blond tobacco leaf, prickly pear, aloe, saffron and sea salt a perfect intersection of land and sea. 'Griddu Verde' can be enjoyed with grilled tuna and wild game; with the traditional 'small plates' of Italy and Spain; and with almonds and a variety of cured meats and cheeses. It will keep well thru 2030 and beyond.

keeps until 2035
(50-59ºF)

keeps 1-2 days
(55-59ºF)

4-5 oz. pour
(55-59ºF)

About Badalucco de la Iglesia Garcia

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. Full details

About White Wine

White wine is typically produced by the 'direct-press' of grapes, regardless of their color, when the juice is separated from the grape skins gently and quickly enough, leaving wine that can be imperceptibly pale to golden in hue. As a result, while the large majority of white wines are made from grapes with yellow or green skins, they can also be made from red-, purple- or black-skinned grapes, as long as there is no maceration or skin contact. (The only exception to this is the red-fleshed Teinturiers.)

Roussillon and the Vinho Regional Lisboa are two up-and-coming white wine regions, as importers, distributors and consumers increasingly recognize them as a source of complex, mineral-driven wines that can be enjoyed in their youth and over the course of years. Both regions express their terroirs in inimitable ways, especially their respective proximity to the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean. Bucelas DOC is regarded as the native home of one of Portugal's greatest white wine varieties, Arinto, while the complex geologies of Roussillon highlight autochthonous varieties Grenache blanc, Grenache gris, and Macabeu. Full details