YRNM

We continue the strong wine-influenced theme for this month on loveSicily, with our entry in the international Wine Blogging Wednesday. The premise is simple. A blogger announces a theme that has to do with wines, and on a wednesday of the month people from all over the world provide their notes on tasting a wine that conformed to the theme. Now, in the past we had themes like Austrialian Shiraz, or New World Riesling. To bring in the new year, however, we have a more abtract theme - wacky wine names - as proposed by Pim of Chez Pim.

At first, we thought that surely the sensible Sicilians would not be able to meet the demands of such a theme. But on closer inspection a lot of the names of Sicilian wines are whacky. For example, you have the Gulfi wineries which insist that all their wines have a J in the name - so you have Rossojbleo, Nerojbleo, Nerobufalefej, Neromaccarj and Nerobaronj and the white Valcanzjria. Even the names of grapes, by virtue of the fact that they are not known in general have a certain wackiness to them. The catarrato and the grillo and frappato, always bring a smile.

But I digress. For this Wine Blogging Wednesday we would like to introduce to you the YRNM, produced by the Miceli wineries in Sicily. Notable by virtue of the fact that in four letters there is only one vowel at the start and it is utlimately unpronounceable. YRNM is an ancient name of Pantelleria, the island of the coast of Sicily where the zibbibo grapes grow which produce the YRNM wine. Pantelleria is the closest you will get to African wines while still in Europe, since the island is closer to Tunis than mainland Italy. The zibbibo grapes are planted in the few arables areas of a mostly rocky place in plots of low, stunted vines protected by stone walls against the winds from the Sahara. Yields are low, sugar and extract high, so the wines are intensly rich.

The YRNM wine is a dry white wine - but with a strong aromatic flavour - almost tropical. It has a solid alcoholic content at 13% and leaves a persistent dry finish on the mouth. The wine is an IGT, comes from the Contrada Rekale, and is aged in steel vats for at least six months. The color is a light yellow. It would make an excellent company with fish such as tuna or swordfish.

Oh.. and if you are wondering how to pronounce it - Yranim .