From the atlas
Tenute Mannino
At A Glance
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| Estate | Tenute Mannino |
| Founded | 1873 |
| Generation | Sixth (Giorgio Mannino) |
| Winery | Castiglione di Sicilia, northern Etna |
| Vineyards | Pietra Marina (northern Etna, 550–600 m); Le Sciarelle (southeastern Etna, 450 m) |
| Vine hectares | 10 ha across 72 ha total holdings |
| Key grapes | Carricante, Catarratto (white); Nerello Mascalese, Nerello Cappuccio (red) |
| Appellations | Etna Bianco DOC; Etna Rosso DOC |
| Cellar | Steel for whites; French-oak tonneaux for red crus |
| Oenologist | Maurizio Saettini |
The Producer
Tenute Mannino has been farming the slopes of Etna since 1873, and Giorgio Mannino is the sixth generation of the family to make wine here. The estate does not sit on one hillside. It is built across two separate exposures of the volcano, each growing different grapes under different conditions, with the range divided accordingly.
The winery itself is in Castiglione di Sicilia on Etna's northern side, where Pietra Marina grows Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio for the red wines. The southeastern vineyard, Le Sciarelle, sits in Viagrande at 450 metres, faces the sea, and grows Carricante and Catarratto for the whites. A third holding, Tenuta del Gelso, is a 65-hectare citrus farm that grows Tarocco oranges, clementines, mandarins, lemons, citron and grapefruit, and carries the deepest physical history of the estate.
Cellar work is led by oenologist Maurizio Saettini. His team uses temperature-controlled tanks and oxygen-limiting equipment for white winemaking, with chillers to manage fermentation timing without chemical additives. The whites age in steel; the red crus mature in French-oak tonneaux.
Place
Etna is a working volcano in northeastern Sicily, and its wines make sense only when the slope is identified. The northern side around Castiglione di Sicilia sits at 550 to 600 metres, receives more rainfall than the southern and eastern faces, and experiences strong swings between daytime heat and cool nights. Those temperature shifts slow the ripening of Nerello Mascalese and help the grape hold its characteristic acidity and red-fruit lift into the finished wine.
The southeastern slopes at Viagrande sit lower, at around 450 metres, and face the Ionian Sea. The sea breeze keeps temperatures from climbing too sharply, which preserves freshness in the white grapes. Carricante, the primary white variety on this side, produces wines with a firm acid line and a mineral character that comes in part from volcanic soil with low organic matter and high mineral content.
Both Etna Bianco DOC and Etna Rosso DOC are geographic appellations tied to the volcano, not to a single village or commune. The two-face geography at Tenute Mannino maps directly onto the legal categories: white grapes on the eastern side, red grapes on the northern side.
Soil And Site
The volcanic soils across both Etna holdings share a mineral density and low fertility that pushes vine roots deep in search of water and nutrients. At Le Sciarelle on the southeastern slope, the volcanic substrate is tempered by sea breezes, giving the Carricante and Catarratto vines a cooler growing window than the altitude alone would suggest. At Pietra Marina on the northern slope, heavier rainfall and more pronounced diurnal variation add to the slow, even ripening that Nerello Mascalese needs to develop complexity without losing its transparency.
Story
The family has been working this land through six generations, and the evidence of that continuity is concrete: the citrus farm at Tenuta del Gelso still produces fruit alongside wine, and the estate's historic palmento, the stone press-house used for communal harvests before modern cellars arrived in Sicily, survives on that same property.
The modern wine program took a deliberate turn in 1998, when the estate committed to a sustained program of production development and supply-chain investment. That decision shaped the cellar as it stands today: temperature-controlled fermentation, oxygen-limiting equipment, and the separation of white and red ageing into distinct vessels and regimes. The range of eight labels, organized by Etna exposure, is the direct result of that investment and of the geographic logic that the two-face vineyard arrangement makes unavoidable.
Giorgio Mannino inherited a farming operation with roots in citrus and communal wine production. The choice was to formalize the wine side without abandoning the agricultural breadth of the estate's citrus and wine production.
Vineyards And Cellar
The estate practices dry farming across both vineyard sites, relying on rainfall and deep root systems rather than irrigation. Between vine rows, the team tills the volcanic soil to encourage progressive mineralization and maintain porosity, which allows rainwater to penetrate rather than run off. The effect is a soil environment that stays biologically active and accessible to vine roots without artificial intervention.
Harvest timing follows a two-stage assessment: the team begins with sensory evaluation of grape shape, colour, aroma and taste, then confirms with targeted chemical and physical tests before picking. Each parcel is harvested at its own moment.
In the cellar, whites go through soft pressing and cold static settling before fermentation in temperature-controlled stainless steel. No oak contact, no oxygen pickup; the goal is to carry the primary citrus and mineral character of the volcanic southeastern slopes into the bottle intact. Red crus from Nerello Mascalese follow a different path, maturing in French-oak tonneaux to build body and integrate tannin while keeping the variety's red-fruit core legible.
Wines
The eight-label range divides cleanly by geography. White wines carry Etna Bianco DOC and come from Le Sciarelle on the southeastern slopes; red and rosé wines carry Etna Rosso DOC and come from Pietra Marina on the northern side.
The Etna Bianco Aurantica is the white flagship: 80 percent Carricante, 20 percent Catarratto, soft-pressed, cold-settled, and fermented in stainless steel. It is a dry white with citrus fruit, white peach, green apple, marked acidity and a mineral character that comes from volcanic soil and sea-facing altitude.
The Etna Rosso Placo is the red counterpart: Nerello Mascalese from the northern slopes, aged in French-oak tonneaux. The wine shows red cherry, dried herbs and an earthy undertone, with medium tannin and the fresh acidity that northern Etna's temperature variation preserves in the grape. The oak adds body without masking the variety's translucent red-fruit character.
Additional crus sit above these two in the range, though the Aurantica and Placo represent the clearest expression of the estate's two-face geographic logic.
In The Glass
Across both colours, the common thread is freshness and a mineral presence that comes from volcanic soil and altitude rather than from cellar manipulation. The whites open with citrus and stone fruit, white peach and green apple, before an acid line that sharpens and lengthens the finish. There is no oak weight; the steel ageing keeps the palate clean and the finish lifted. The mineral character arrives in the mid-palate and carries through.
The reds are transparent in the way that Nerello Mascalese tends to be on northern Etna: red cherry and dried herbs up front, an earthy note mid-palate, tannin that is present but not heavy, and the same freshness that the white wines show, here kept in place by the diurnal swings at 550 to 600 metres. The French-oak tonneaux adds a quiet backbone of without importing vanilla or toast into the picture.
A Bottle To Understand It
The Etna Bianco Aurantica is the right first bottle. It is 80 percent Carricante, 20 percent Catarratto, from Le Sciarelle at 450 metres on the volcanic southeastern slope, fermented and aged in stainless steel with no oak contact. The wine is dry, with citrus and white peach on the nose, a firm acid line in the mouth, green apple and mineral character through the mid-palate, and a clean finish with length. It is the bottle that most directly translates the Le Sciarelle site, the Carricante grape, and the steel-only cellar approach into a single glass. Start here before moving to the red crus.
Anecdote
The palmento at Tenuta del Gelso is a stone press-house built in the era before mechanical cellars reached the Sicilian estates. During harvest, it served as a gathering place for everyone living and working on the property: the citrus pickers, the vine workers, and the Mannino family together in one building around the press. The same 65-hectare estate was already shipping citrus and wine to Europe and North America and entering them in World Fairs at a time when most Etna production stayed on the island. The palmento still stands on the property today, a few metres from the Tarocco orange groves and the clementine trees, while the sixth generation runs a temperature-controlled cellar a short distance away in Castiglione di Sicilia.
Final Word
Tenute Mannino is a two-face Etna estate with 150 years of farming history and a range organised by slope and grape. The white wines from the volcanic southeastern side and the red wines from the northern side each carry a distinct character. The Etna Bianco Aurantica, steel-aged Carricante and Catarratto from Le Sciarelle, is the clearest point of entry.
Sources
- https://tenutemannino.com/en/home-en/
- https://tenutemannino.com/en/the-estates/
- https://tenutemannino.com/en/the-estates/good-viticultural-practices/
- https://tenutemannino.com/en/in-the-cellar/
- https://www.kysela.com/producers/tenute-mannino.html
- https://www.kysela.com/wine/tenute-mannino-etna-bianco-aurantica.html
- https://www.kysela.com/wine/tenute-mannino-etna-rosso-placo.html
- https://tenutemannino.com/en/tenute-mannino-and-its-products/the-wines-of-tenute-mannino/
- https://www.villanera.se/awards_points/
- https://www.vino.com/en/dettaglio/etna-rosso-doc-tenute-mannino-2022.html