Luca Maroni has awarded Donnafugata’s Passito for the third consecutive year. Antonio Rallo: “Recognition for Ben Ryé – son of the heroic viticulture of Pantelleria”.
Once again Ben Ryé and the heroic viticulture of Pantelleria has risen to the highest podium. Luca Maroni, one of the most authoritative Italian wine critics, awarded for the third consecutive year the Passito di Pantelleria of Donnafugata with a score of 99/100.
According to “The pleasure index” of Maroni, the Ben Ryé 2017 is classified as “Best Wine of Italy” in its category. The highest award was given only to a limited circle of wines (of which only two were sweet wines) that achieved the exceptional score of 99/100 out of over eight thousand tasted, produced by more than 1,200 companies.
Ben Ryé is “a viticultural and oenological masterpiece, established among the best sweet wines in the world. Chapeau,” wrote Maroni in his Yearbook of the Best Italian Wines of 2020, which is inspired by the principle that “the quality of wine is the pleasantness of its taste”.
“We are happy to see the Ben Ryé awarded as a symbol of Italian excellence in the world – says Antonio Rallo, wine-maker of the family business -. Awards such as this repay the sacrifices of the heroic viticulture of Pantelleria, where the cultivation of the vine tree heritage Unesco makes the Passito and the landscape of the island unique”.
The Ben Ryé 2017 has a very intense bouquet with notes of raisins, apricot and candied orange peel. On the palate, it offers its extraordinary freshness that balances the sweetness. Perfect to accompany dry pastries, almond or ricotta cakes, as well as cheeses; it reveals its authentic greatness even on its own, as a meditation wine.
The award ceremony will took place on the opening night of the event The Best Italian Wines 2020, scheduled in Rome on February 13 in the evocative setting of the Salone delle Fontane at EUR.