Everything that nature has of greatness, everything it has of beauty, everything it has of terror, can be compared to Etna, and Etna cannot be compared to anything. A mysterious and special place, a unique ecosystem characterized by extraordinary climatic variability. Life is a delicate and strong affair, seemingly controversial in its way of thriving lushly as much as conditions seem precarious: because it is a matter of balance and, after all, it is known that it is on the edge of the precipice that balance is at its maximum. Etna, where balance is achieved by a combination of violent and primitive elements. Fire and air, crossed by very hot winds coming from the mouth of the volcano and from the cold of its summit, sweep the slopes of the mountain, raising the dust that is at the same time black and providential, a mantle that covers the earth with fertility and that settles on its fruits; at night this essence hibernates fixing this essence in a concentrate, which to call intense would be too reductive. A sip lasting 100 years of life The grape here is almost all ungrafted vine, as the lush bunches are the result of a land impregnated with lava, and the vines raised at a decent altitude, two factors that, together with abundant ventilation, have made it immune, over time, from the devastations of phylloxera and oidium. In relation to the climate, it alternates conditions of drought with those of storm, while the force of Hephaestus manifests itself almost every day, cutting the mountain and the collective memory with vermilion rivulets, sometimes destructive, other times moving.