Murgo Wine and Sweet Chestnuts

The wine industry in Sicily has been going through a period of rapid change over the past twenty years and the popularity and prestige of Sicilian wine is continuously on the rise.

Wine grapes have always grown on the island and Greek mythology tells us that it was Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, who planted the vines there himself.

The Mediterranean climate with abundant Sicilian sunshine, a balanced rainfall, mountainous terrain and volcanic soil made rich by Mount Etna's ash and lava all create the perfect conditions for growing quality grapes with a distinctive taste and there are many varieties across the island.

Everyone needs friends who say "Jump in the car, we are taking you both for lunch at Murgo Winery" and for us those friends are Isabella Randazzo the expert wedding planner behind Wedding in Sicily Taormina and her husband Tony, owner of Time Out Pub in Taormina. We have known each other for many years now. I met Isabella after a bride who follows my Blog asked me for advice on getting married in Taormina and after contacting Isabella and meeting up we hit it off immediately, then we met Tony and the rest as they say is history.

Autumn is the perfect time to visit a winery to experience Vendemmia, this is the Italian word for harvest but not just any harvest but the harvest of grapes. Annual wine festivals celebrate viticulture and usually occur after the harvest of the grapes which generally falls in Sicily at the end of September and runs until well into October or sometimes later. On 11^th November, Sicily, and the rest of Italy, celebrate San Martino when everyone enjoys the new wine from the barrel. This time of year is also called Estate di San Martino (the summer of San Martino) as the first few weeks of November usually boasts fine warm weather something that us English would call an Indian summer. Whether it is homemade wine or at winery you can be sure to enjoy some delectable new wine this time of year.

Murgo have been producing wines on their family estates since 1860 both on Mount Etna and on the mainland in Lazio. Baron Emanuele Scammacca del Murgo, who enjoyed a long diplomatic career that led him to be Ambassador of Italy to the Holy See, Brussels, Moscow and the Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, decided in 1981 to transform the land and properties of his family. In the following years his sons joined him in his venture, along with his brothers. Together they continue to prosper with the family traditions along with new generations. The Murgo Company was founded when Senator Luigi Gravina gave the Scammacca Family around 30 hectares of vineyard on Etna where today the San Michele Estate stands. The family produce not only wine but also citrus fruits, olive oil and vegetables.

Murgo Wine is one of Sicily's most popular and beloved wines.

The heart of the Murgo production, the historic Tenuta San Michele, is located 500 metres above sea level and is in an enchanting panoramic setting nestled on the slopes of Etna. The vineyard covers an area of 25 hectares and is mostly dedicated to the production of Etna doc wine. At the winery farmhouse the family are committed to offering traditional Sicilian hospitality with the tasting of Murgo quality products and it is possible, by reservation, to organise tastings of their delectable wines accompanied by local produce along with a tour of the winery cellar. Alternatively, in the restaurant, you can enjoy lunch, or dinner (summer months only), where a fixed price menu is updated daily depending on the availability of seasonal produce and this is what we enjoyed with Isabella and Tony. We were also joined by Isabella's lovely mamma Maria, who grew up in a pretty village close to the winery.

Murgo Winery is amazing and the views of the surrounding volcanic terrain and the Ionian Sea is breath taking. It is a good way to spend an hour or two if you are visiting the southern flanks of Mount Etna.

For lunch we enjoyed a sumptuous feast and our dog Duke was made to feel very welcome too. For starters we enjoyed sharing local cheeses and salami, warming autumnal appetisers including fritters made from chickpeas, Etna mushrooms, frittata made with fennel fronds, stuffed red peppers wrapped with pancetta and a huge plate of caponata. After our starters along came two pasta dishes, one was Catania's beloved signature dish, Pasta alla Norma, which staple ingredient is aubergine (eggplant), and the other was a seasonal pasta dish made with the farms home grown pumpkin with speck and mascarpone. Oh so yummy!!! Main course was mixed grilled meats including my favourite Salsiccia (Sicilian sausage with fennel) all washed down with a bottle, or two, of Murgo Etna Bianco. Our light dessert was little Etna pears poached in Murgo Etna Rosso wine.

After our delicious volcanic lunch and with contented and full stomachs we all decided to embark on a "nutty" autumnal walk …

Fed by the mineral rich volcanic soil of Etna, the woods and forests on our volcano boast many nut trees including pistachios, walnuts, hazelnuts and chestnuts that are in abundance during autumn and winter months.

Not far from the Murgo Winery you will find the small village of Saint Alfio. This small village dates back to the end of the 1600's. The Chapel of Magazzeni is located in the territory of the village and was built in homage to three martyred Saints, St. Alfio, St. Filadelfo and St. Cirino. It is said that the statues of these three Saints were taken out of the small chapel and placed in the path of lava in an eruption back in 1928. The divine statues supposedly diverted the lava flow away from Saint Alfio and saved the village and its people.

Whilst the village of Saint Alfio is known for this miracle it is also well known for its chestnut woods and the big attraction is one particular legendary tree, Il Castagno dei Cento Cavalli (The Hundred Horse Chestnut Tree).

There are many large chestnut trees throughout Europe but none can match up to the legendary Hundred Horse Chestnut Tree. The exact age of this tree is not truly known and estimates vary widely from 2000 to 4000 years old. The tree has survived many volcanic eruptions and it has been listed by the Guinness World Records as the greatest tree girth ever, noting that it had a circumference of 57.19M when it was first measured in 1780. Above ground the tree has since spilt into three multiple large trunks, but below ground these trunks still share the same roots.

But how did this chestnut tree get its name?

Despite its name it is not a horse chestnut tree …

Il Castagno dei Cento Cavalli is a multi-millennial sweet chestnut tree. This tree, considered as the most famous and largest in Italy, is the subject of one of the oldest naturalistic protection acts in Sicily, it has been studied by several botanists and visited by many famous people in the past. Its history blends with the legend of a mysterious queen and her one hundred horsemen with their steeds, which it is said, found shelter from a storm. In 1982 the State Forestry Corps placed it as part of the Italian Heritage of Green Mountains which consists of 22,000 trees in Italy of considerable interest, and it has been highlighted among 150 trees of exceptional historical and monumental value.

The tree is located in the woods of Carpineto, on the eastern flank of Etna, in an area protected by the Etna Regional Park. Several authors in history agree on its age but not on its exact age, thinking from two to four thousand years and, according to a thesis in 1982 by the Turin botanist Bruno Peyronel, it could well be the oldest tree in Europe and the largest in Italy. The first historical information on Castagno dei Cento Cavalli is documented as early as the sixteenth century. In 1611 Antonio Filoteo, one of the greatest Sicilian scholars of the 16th century, spoke about the tree, while in 1636 Pietro Carrera, a Sicilian historian and author, described the trunk and the tree as majestic "but only able to house thirty horses underneath it". On the 21st August 1745 a first deed was issued by the Court of the Royal Heritage in Sicily, which meant that the tree was institutionally protected. This document was configured in virtue of the historical period (late eighteenth century) and is among the first acts, if not the first, of environmental protection in Sicily.

The distinguished Catanese geologist, historian and volcanologist, Giuseppe Recupero in “The Natural and General History of Etna" accurately described the tree and told that in the year 1766 he found a very deteriorated house located under the leaves.

The tree was portrayed by many travellers on the Grand Tour, including Scottish traveller Patrick Brydon and Jean-Pierre Houel, a French painter. Patrick Brydon, in 1787, described the tree and portrayed it in his book "A Tour Through Sicily and Malta", which was first published in 1773, using the following words; "Its size is so much higher than that of the other trees, that the sensation felt in describing it can never be expressed. In addition, I asked the villagers to tell me the story of this tree. They told me how Queen Giovanna of Anjou, (Joanna of Aragon, the Queen of Naples), whilst travelling from Spain to Naples, stopped in Sicily and went to visit Mount Etna accompanied by all her knights. Since a storm had occurred, she took refuge under this tree, whose vast foliage was enough to cover this queen and all her knights from the rain." A painting of the tree by Jean-Pierre Houel, which he painted in 1777, holds the title "The Tree in Gouache". The tree has been depicted in many paintings by many artists thereafter.

Whilst it is said that it was Queen Giovanna who took refuge under the tree, according to another legend it is also said that it was the Empress Isabella of England, the third wife of King Frederick II of Sicily, who found refuge during the storm with her one hundred knights. These legends, like that of Mount Etna being the legendary Avalon and the final resting place of King Arthur, are most likely the results of popular local folklore. In fact it is thought that Queen Giovanna, supposedly known for debauchery and love affairs with her knights, never actually visited Sicily during her reign.

The tree's story does not end there, after being entered in the Guinness Book of Records as having the “Greatest Tree Girth Ever" the tree soon separated into four parts meaning it could no longer hold the record, but when one of the trunks died, the villagers realised the space left could fit a carriage through it and so they built a road through the tree and used it for hundreds of years. This road no longer exists, if it ever existed at all.

In 1923 the tree was damaged by a fire. According to unproven local gossip it had been set on fire for some reason in retaliation by some inhabitants of the large town of Giarre located by the sea.

The area where the tree stands was once owned by the noble Santalfi Caltabiano Family. It was supposedly used by the family as a place for convivial feasting and banquets for their distinguished guests. I do hope that chestnuts were on the menu. In 1965 the tree was expropriated and declared a national monument. At the end of the twentieth century local authorities started a series of studies to protect and conserve the chestnut tree. The scientific Italian television program, Superquark, shown on the Italian TV Channel Rai Uno, studied DNA taken from the tree. On the basis of the results obtained, it could be said that the chestnut tree could have the largest circumference in the world, before a cypress tree in Mexico. This thesis, however, is still under consideration by the scientific community, which is still studying the peculiarities of the tree.

In 1965 the tree was declared a national monument and in 2006 UNESCO bestowed upon it the title Peace-Messenger Monument stating "The place, admired for its wild facies by all eighteenth and nineteenth century visitors, has been and continues to be a symbol of evoked fertility. The tree is in fact a testimony to the generating power of the fertilising nature and fruitfulness and it is universally renowned to be a symbol of the power of life that is born and always regenerates. Around the trunk recalls an endless union that involves together the richness and fertility of the tree and the soil. Ritual and legends are linked to this millennial chestnut tree. The myth is so fascinating that on a stormy night a Queen was loved by the hundred knights of her retinue who had taken refuge overnight with her in the trunk of the majestic tree."

The chestnut tree today is about 22 metres in height and consists of three trunks respectively 13, 20 and 21 metres that share the same roots.

No one knows whatever happened to the so called deteriorated house beneath its leaves that was discovered by Giuseppe Recupero.

As it was back in the days of The Grand Tour the tree is still a beloved destination for many visitors to Mount Etna locally and from all over the world.

Aside from being a famous legendary tree its sweet chestnuts are quite tasty too. You will find many sweet chestnut trees on the lower slopes of Etna from around 500 metres above sea level up until the terrain becomes more rugged with blackened ancient lava flows.

Nut harvesting is a great pastime for Sicilians each autumn.

Etna chestnuts and hazelnuts are harvested on private lands but also they are harvested in groves which are open to everyone. You will see many locals and visitors who enjoy walks through the woods collecting nuts in autumn and early winter and you will find nuts being roasted by vendors in big drums in towns, markets and at festive festivals. The Etna chestnuts are not very large but they are very tasty. When the flowers of these majestic trees are in bloom in spring and early summer they provide a wonderful nectar for the production of chestnut honey which is very unique to Etna.

From a car park the pathway leading to the Il Castagno dei Cento Cavalli is serene and mythical, and there are many smaller chestnut trees and lots of hazelnut trees along the way.

As we walked towards this legendary tree I thought to myself that these days any Queen would have trouble sheltering under it, this is because it is protected, secured and surrounded by a high perimeter fence and so you cannot get up close and personal for a cheeky tree hug.

*** Tree hugging is a practice thought to have mental and emotional benefits, hugging a tree is said to help you feel calmer and more relaxed. I can highly recommend it.

The branches of the tree extend over the perimeter fencing and on our walk we found plenty of chestnut husks, the spiky casing for the fruits which normally hold two or three chestnuts inside. The chestnuts are usually ripe when they fall to the ground and when the green husks start to brown, fall from the tree and split open with the nuts peeping out. How could we not resist collecting some?

The tree is a great place for a story teller which is why I think Isabella and Tony thought it was the perfect place for me to visit and write about.

The surrounding hazelnut trees had already shed their bounty of round nuts and so we concentrated on finding a bounty of chestnuts and with Duke's help we found plenty of ripe chestnuts to take home to roast.

If you are not successful on your hunt for hazelnuts and chestnuts you can buy them from a kiosk in the car park near Il Castagno dei Cento Cavalli. Hazelnut in Italian is "Nocciola" and chestnut is "Castagno". You will also see "Noce" which are walnuts, another wonderful nut tree that you will find in abundance in Etna's woods. On the day we visited the owners of this lovely little kiosk were also selling local new homemade wine which, as if we hadn’t drunk enough wine already, they let us taste. They also had some beautiful sweet Etna apples which are in season each autumn which are hard to resist.

After our nut harvesting adventure we all set off back down the slopes of Etna back home but not before stopping off for a gelato in Giarre. Isabella asked me “What flavour are you having?” of course it had to be Nocciola (Hazelnut), one of my favourite autumnal gelato flavours.

We left Mount Etna that day with mamma Maria’s expert advice on how to roast our bounty of chestnuts …

Her best advice? After roasting them in the oven wrap them up in a tea towel, leave them to cool and then they will become easy to peel to eat and so on mamma Maria’s advice I roasted my legendary chestnuts in my oven, lovingly wrapped them up and then once they were cooled but still warm I took them up to our roof terrace to peel and we devoured them with a glass of chilled Murgo Etna Bianco under the watchful eye of Mount Etna.

If you cannot make it up to Murgo Winery on your stay in Sicily then head to Time Out Pub in Taormina where you will be able to order a glass of Murgo wine from Tony and his team. Cheers to that !!!!!