The Story of Susucaru
We can confidently assume that if you are currently reading this writeup here on the Juiced Wines website that you’ve heard or seen the famous Susucaru natural red wine that’s grapes comes from the ashy, yet oxygenating Mount Etna slopes? We thought so.
Anyway, the Susucaru is this magical type of natural wine that is produced by a Belgian vigneron who now resides on the slopes of Mount Etna himself, right next to his oh so prized vines - Frank Corneilisen, an incredibly passionate, thorough man who devotes every single day of his life towards producing top tier quality natural wines. Frank’s story is quite interesting and makes total sense as to how he’s ended up where he is in life at this present moment, initially as a young boy he was allowed to try wine at the dinner table with his family and in particular with his father, who according to all accounts was a proper expert when it came to drinking, sniffing, tasting and selecting nothing but excellent wine’s for any kind of occasion. So it was as a young child when Frank's first interests in top quality wine’s were planted in his head, and by the time he had reached eleven and twelve years old he was already allowed to join his father on his weekly trips to their local wine trader and pick out one specific bottle per week.
Fast forward a few years and at this point Frank’s got himself even deeper into the wine industry and began to buy and sell classically made, top tier quality wine. Can you start to see his evolution? Frank found himself over in Sicily obviously looking for some amazing wines to represent on his wine broker portfolio, whether it was just a day-trip or a personal tour around the slopes of Mount Etna something clicked for him - it was on this exact journey that he fell completely in love with everything to do with Sicily and her beautiful, still volcanic Mount Etna. It was something in the air, something in the terroir, something in the moment that brought Frank to Mount Etna and as a result he came back not too long after purchasing twenty four hectares of land where he could get to work on planting vines and producing proper Mount Etna representing natural wines. There’s no doubt there were bumps along his journey at the beginning, Frank was producing cuvees that now he would most certainly class as oxidised or mousy etc but as a result of all these mishaps along the way Frank found himself producing a natural red wine made by a range of different, indigenous to Sicily grape varieties such as Nerello Mascalese, Nerello Capuccio, Allicante Boushet, Minella & Uva Francesa, firstly he named it Contadino but then naturally switched the name to ‘Susucaru’, and that’s when things started getting super hyped around Frank and his wines.
Since the first few vintages of Susucaru came out, Frank’s been interviewed and filmed by just about every media company you’d want to be interviewed by all across the globe - NY Times, The Guardian, various Youtube series’ and the biggest backer of them all...Action Bronson! Action Bronson has this lyrical way with words in which he makes just about anything sound deliciously good, but when it came to the Susucaru the man was nearly brought to tears by how special a wine it was. A completely naturally made wine, produced from grapes that grow through volcanic, previously lava-based soil, incredible stuff really and that’s exactly why the Susucaru has become so mainstream and hyped along the years!
Check out the Susucaru Rosso and Susucaru Rosato here, both in stock and available now!
