WTN: 2006 Donnafugata Passito di Pantelleria Ben Ryé

[David M. Bueker]

Several years ago while on a hiking trip to the Canadian Rockies I smelled and tasted some freshly made dried apricots. The essence of those apricots is in this wine. Combine the concentrated fruit essence with the pleasurable memories of the mountains and I am in vinous heaven. Amazing wine!

Okay, you don't need to know this...but I love these details.

Pantelleria is a fascinating place. Small islands, sparse vegetation, forbidding moonscape, largely of broken down lava rock. Arid; very little water. And the wind comes up from North Africa, from the desert, scorching across the islands, drying everything out.

The name, Pantelleria, is said to come from the ancient Moorish name for the islands, Bint al'rhia, which loosely means 'place of the burning winds'. Forbidding place.

Some of the Moscato vineyards there look so strange. They are widely separated single plants, down in little depressions made in the volcanic soil, in part to shelter them from the moisture stripping winds.

And of course the wine is marvellous.

An Italian friend who goes there every Summer told me it's the southernmost bit of Europe, closer to Africa than any other part of Europe.

[David M. Bueker]

Thanks for the information Hoke. Of course now it's going to be really hard to sustain that mental association I have with the mountains. Now I keep seeing that Sicilian funeral scene from Godfather II.

An Italian friend who goes there every Summer told me it's the southernmost bit of Europe, closer to Africa than any other part of Europe.

Sorry to hurt your friend´s pride, Oswaldo, but that is not true. The southernmost point is the Greek island of Gavdos and closest to Africa is Gibraltar. (If you do not count the Spanish cities that are in Africa, that is.)

Greetings from Sweden / Fredrik L

PS. And the name Ben Ryé is Arabic and means "son of the wind".

[David M. Bueker]

And the name Ben Ryé is Arabic and means "son of the wind".

Thanks for that tidbit.

Aforementioned Pantelleria. You gotta be serious when you go to this much trouble to farm your grapes!

[David M. Bueker]

Wow. It is like the moon.

This stuff is good, but isn't it made from zibibbo?

[David M. Bueker]

Apparently Zibibbo is a local name for a variety of Muscat.

Apparently Zibibbo is a local name for a variety of Muscat.

Yeah, the two grapes responsible for most of the sweet, intense wine of the region are Muscato and Malvasia...by whatever names they are called.

If you like the Ben Rye, check out the Hauner Malvasia delle Lipari, from the tiny island group just north of Sicily. Sometimes transcendental wines of incredible richness. Most of the ones I've had were when the old man was still alive---but I understand his daughter (or grand-daughter, I'm not sure) is carrying on the tradition quite well.

Another P-di-P you might want to try out is Bukkuram. But pricey, tho. I remember buying this when it was about $12 for a 375ml bottle back in the 80's. Tough to find nowadays.

Pedant alert!!! The name "Pantelleria" is of unknown etymology. Hoke cites a well known idea that the name comes from "Bint al'rhia" but that doesn't seem right. Ríh (pl. riyáh) is indeed "wind" in Arabic, so the name bint al-riyáh would mean "daughter of the winds" (not burning wind, as Arabic uses sarsar for that; ríh is simply any wind). It is a possible etymology, but what I am worried about is that Byzantine sources site the area as Pantalaria. I am not absolutely certain of when the Byzantine sources first mention it, but I thought they were fairly early, so it seems quite unlikely they would have been using an Arabic loan for the name. Another problem is that the article al- would get assimilated to the first letter of the word "wind" so that it sounds like /arriyáh/. If the etymology suggested by Hoke is right, why is there an /l/ at all in the name? Currently more generally accepted is that it is from the Latin patella (meaning plate). Though I should stress again that the etymology is a mystery and either is possible as is something totally different. Linguists, and surely all other sciences, hate to admit not knowing something!

The name Ben Ryé is fairly straight forward: it is from bin al-riyáh, "son of the winds". Though most internet sites say it is "son of the wind", it is actually in the plural grammatically - IIRC the vineyards from which this wine is sourced are placed in two locations, one with high elevation one with low and that therefore the wine is a son of two winds. I find this explanation unlikely because Arabic would use the dual rihayn for this meaning, whereas this is in the plural. Etymologies of names are always difficult. (Also considering how straightforward this name's etymology is, if Hoke's suggested etymology (sorry, don't mean to pick on you, Hoke!) for the island were correct, why doesn't it look more like Bint Ryé? I would at least expect the names to look more similar if they really were borrowed from such similar Arabic words.)

FWIW, I have tasted one vintage of the wine (I can't recall which) and I rather enjoyed it, though it was rather in-your-face. Great, great fun in small doses.

-Otto

Thanks, Otto. I was hoping you'd chime in here.

My 'suggested etymology' was actually something I had read in a reference...sadly, don't remember where or when. So it is hardly definitive, and your analysis is appreciated.

Looking back over it, when you're talking about the Ben Rye....I'd have to say I am still tempted to go back to the "al riyah" and try to conflate the "Pantel" with "Bint al", and still come up with a Pantelleria that comes from the Moorish (and we don't know what branch of "Moorish" we're referring to, so there could have been variations we know not of...

However or whatever, it is definitely fascinating.

Now if Bob Ross would wake up from his nap and crack open his lexicon, we would be complete.