Until recently, my only knowledge of Mount Etna was Evelyn Waugh’s parodic description of it, when he visited in the Twenties:

I do not think I shall ever forget the sight of Etna at sunset; the mountains almost invisible in a blur of pastel grey, glowing on the top and then repeating its shape, as thought reflected, in a wisp of smoke, with the whole horizon behind radiant with pink light, fading gently into a grey pastel sky. Nothing I have ever seen in Art or Nature was quite so revolting.

These days Etna tends to be more associated with potential eruptions, given that it is the largest active volcano in Europe, but there is another far more interesting trait of the region…it is Ground Zero for the most exciting new wine in Italy. It seems that quite a lot of people have begun to cotton on to this – The Wine Spectator just placed a Sicilian Red into the top ten of the most exciting wines of 2018. This was a Terre Nere San Lorenzo 2016, which sold out immediately from Justerini & Brooks, the UK distributor, which is hardly surprising, given that for a wine of this quality, it cost just over £30 a bottle.