Frank Cornelissen is considered as one of the most extreme natural wine producer. The winery is located on the slope of Mt.Etna in Sicily, Italy and he began to produce wines in 2001. The wine is like a mass of energy, rocks, raw and primitive.
PHILOSOPHY
Our farming philosophy is based on our acceptance of the fact that man will never be able to understand nature's full complexity and interactions. We therefore choose to concentrate on observing and learning the movements of Mother Earth in her various energetic and cosmic passages and prefer to follow her indications as to what to do, instead of deciding and imposing ourselves. Consequently this has taken us to avoiding all possible interventions on the land we cultivate, including any treatments, whether chemical, organic, or biodynamic, as these are all a mere reflection of the inability of man to accept nature as she is and will be.
The divine ability to understand the 'Whole' was obviously not given to man as we are only a part of this complex and not God himself.
Our products are the result of this philosophy and our hands and team. Wines and olive oils which reflect ultimate territorial identity and mineral depth carry the name Magma and MunJebel. (from Frank Cornelissen website)
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VINEYARD
The surface area of our estate is approximately 15 hectares, of which 12ha are vines in the classic free standing alberello training system (Gobelet or bush-vine), approximately 1ha of olive growth and the remainder are fruit trees, vegetables and bush. Although Etna has a tradition in high density plantation of vines, we search to reduce monoculture and have interplanted various local fruit varieties and keep bees to regain a complex ecosystem. The new vineyards are planted without grafts, using the cuttings of a selection of our pre-phylloxera vines. The training system used is the alberello. Buckwheat is used for rebalancing soils low on organic material without recourse to industrial compost, especially important when preparing land for a new vineyard plantation. We try avoiding soil-tilling although this depends on the vintage and the quantity of water over the winter (recovering of the vines after the production cycle). Our goal is to avoid all treatments whatsoever in the vineyard, orchard and surroundings, in which we succeeded even in difficult vintages such as 2004 and 2005. Unfortunately there will always be the exceptional vintages where treatments with copper sulphate and sulphur are necessary to avoid vines from dying.
In order to obtain profound, territorial wines, our grape yields are low, around 300 to 500g per vine, achieved by pruning very short in the dormant season. On our MunJebel single vineyard cru's and our Grand Vin Magma, every grape cluster is tailored, with tails cut away and unripe or damaged berries delicately hand picked out. We harvest relatively late, in search for perfect ripeness, starting mid October to mid November, effected in multiple passes, to obtain dense and profound wines.
WINEMAKING
We refuse to add any product in every aspect of our winemaking and bottling, thus also avoiding the use of sulphur dioxide, which enables our wines to express themselves to their full extent. The grapes are transformed in a delicate way, fermented with the skins in small neutral tubs to avoid high temperatures during fermentation, which lasts at least until alcoholic fermentation is finished, depending on the quality of the skins, enabling the fermentation to finish perfectly. After this stage, the wines are gently pressed and stored in neutral vessels in order not to absorb any external taste. The wines destined for early bottling go into bigger HDPE decanting tanks whereas the wines with higher tannin levels are aged in epoxy-treated terracotta vessels of 400 litres, buried up to the neck in the cellar in ground volcanic rock. (from Frank Cornelissen website)
Frank Cornelissen has been around wine most of his life, if you ask him, he will tell you that he "stumbled into wine because of passion." The son of a wine collector in Belgium, Frank’s passion for wine eventually drove him to Etna, where he made his first vintage in 2001. It was just 500 bottles of what he refers to as "Liquid Rock." Frank was drawn to the Northern Valley of Etna and says that he was "attracted to territory and terroir." Unlike other regions with a historical lineage, such as Piemonte or Burgundy, Frank says that Etna has a balance between environment and vineyards as well as dry and cool climate.
Etna, in a short period of 10-15 years, has gone from a region that very few outside of Sicily even acknowledged to a region that today is offering wines comparable to the quality found in "Barolo level" wines. Frank believes that in a few decades we will "see what Etna is really about." That being said, and given that his wines are already on a world-class level, we simply cannot wait to see what the future holds for the Etna region and Franks wines. Over the past 15 years his wines have come a long way. Frank is now making high-definition, Single-Vineyard wines in a precise way and his personality and attention to detail are reflected in the glass.
Across the industry Frank’s wines have been labeled as "Natural Wines." However, Frank himself takes a distant stance from that term, simply because it has never been truly defined, neither by natural producers, nor by law. According to Frank a "natural wine" is made without anything added and from grapes that are not treated at all. This being said, Frank is not always able to achieve this level in the vineyards as he sometimes needs to treat the vines with sulphur and copper due to vintages with humid weather conditions. Frank is very fond of nature and says "it is our heritage and we need to respect it if we want to leave healthy land to the next generation. If you treat nature well it rewards you with profound products." Some would say that great wine is made in the vineyard, but Frank will tell you that this is only part of the road. He states that wine is an expression of culture where man plays an important role in transforming and “educating” wines to their full expression. Therefore the cellar is an important instrument which enables man to make the wines express themselves to their best and show their territorial identity thanks to the grapes cultivated by man in harmony with Nature.
Over the past decade Frank has become a leading producer in Etna and his wines are a testament to the high quality coming from the region. The style of his wines can be compared to that of Barolo, Burgundy, or even a combination of both. (from International Wine Report)
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