2017 Aldo Viola "Shiva” Terre Siciliane Bianco

Aldo spent time traveling through India during his younger years, and “Shiva” is named in homage to Hinduism’s “Great God” and supreme being—the deity of destruction and rebirth. He only makes it when the vintage inspires him to do so, and there is no rule as to what variety it will comprise or how it will be made. Aldo produces a Shiva when he has extraordinary raw materials, and he lets those materials guide the process; thus, just as the god can assume multiple forms, so can the wine. The 2017 Shiva is late-harvested Catarratto from Aldo’s oldest vines, macerated for several weeks on its skins, then pressed and aged one year in French oak barrels. Additionally, 30% of the harvest is dried before fermentation, thereby lending it a walloping concentration of fruit that is unique in Aldo’s lineup. This maelstrom of a wine encompasses a multitude of aromas and flavors, from soaring spices to dried herbs to fruit leather to beef stock, and the palate displays unabashed intensity; it is the only wine in this lineup to bare its claws, but it stops short of drawing blood. Aldo produced only 1200 bottles of the 2017 Shiva in total.