The Sciacchetrà wine
Over the last years the Cinque Terre wine Sciacchetrà has become famous in the whole world. It’s a passito, a dessert wine, its “formula” has probably very old roots.
At the beginning of the grape harvest the winegrower carefully selects the most beautiful bunches of grapes among his fields. For the Sciacchetrà there are used the same grape varietals as for the Cinque Terre white wine but the grapes of the Bosco varietal are the most adequate ones for the passito wine, mainly because the bunches are not too compact (and air can circulate during the drying process) and the grape skin is not too thin.
But one of the main reasons is for sure its intense aromatic taste. The winegrower hangs the selected bunches up one by one in the cellars or in a garage or in a cottage in the vineyards, or he distributes them thoroughly aired boxes in a dry place. Thus they dry up for about 50 days, at least until the 1st November. Thereafter the winegrower destems the bunches by hand, grape by grape.
The result is a concentrated wine, sweet and with an alcoholic strength of up to 17 %. Very characteristic is the minerality in combination with the sweetness that never becomes sticky. This wine traditionally accompanies the dessert but it is great also with cheeses especially with blue cheeses.