A Chardonnay attacked by botrytis cinerea allowed the birth of a “Unique Work” wine, taking advantage of a production opportunity in the climatic adversity.
This story is a demonstration that sometimes “not all evils come to harm” or that often critical situations conceal some opportunities and one only needs to seize them with an open mind to canon change in order to make the most of them and gain an unexpected and unique opportunity that at least alleviates some or all of the adversity.
A Donnafugata in the year 2018 this very thing happened that allowed the birth of Opera Unica, a Chardonnay from noble rot that is decidedly rare for Sicily. The protagonist of this story is the Senore vineyard in the Mazzoporro district (Contessa Entellina estate), which in 2018 had the misfortune of suffering as much as 138 ml of rain in a few days, which added to previous ones made it a year with heavy rainfall. The result? a compromised harvest; it was therefore decided to leave the grapes on the vine and proceeded to other vineyards. Someone regularly passed through the vineyard to see anyway the work to be done to make the vineyard suitable for preparation for the next vintage, railing against the bad luck
of that year. Suddenly he noticed that a part of the bunches was attacked by a grayish-colored mold and alerted agronomic managers at Donnafugata who, after appropriate checks, determined it to be botrytis cinerea, the person responsible for many famous European sweet wines, and a Sicilian. I boomer will remember Tasca d’Almerita’s 1991 botrytized Chardonnay, which had the same path.
Thus was born almost as a bet and to seize the opportunity Opera Unica, a name that is also an augury, drawn in very few examples (only 6,574 bottles) and the child of a very special and fascinating situation. As reported by the winery itself, it is a wine “ideal with sushi, the dishes of Asian cuisine with predominantly umami
, mushroom dishes, white meats. Also try with roe and semi-seasoned cheeses.” It should not be served too cold, but at 12-14°C.
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