One for your next wine options game - a wine snob's dream and ceramic eggs

I saw it described somewhere this morning as a wine snob's dream but if you want something obscure to astound your friends then hop on to the website of Melbourne's Harry & Frankie. They had three bottles in stock when I looked of 2012 Giotto Bini Serragghia Bianco Zibibbo Secco IGT Sicilia which has just made The Observer's list of the 50 hottest places, people and trends in food,

A tiny island off the coast of Tunisia is the unlikely source of this extraordinary wine, which is gaining a cult following in the UK. Ten years ago, a Milanese architect named Gabrio Bini started harvesting zibibbo grapes on Pantelleria, which forms part of Sicily. Grown from volcanic soil and tended manually, with the help of a horse, the grapes are left to ferment in giant amphorae half-buried in the ground.

You've got to love the influence of those horses and I expect it won't be long before James Halliday is exploring there influence. He's already on to the magical properties of the emphorae. He wrote glowingly of the 2013 Yangarra Estate Vineyard Small Pot Ceramic Egg McLaren Vale Grenache at the weekend. It was one of eight Yangarra wines recently tasted "mainly from 2013, some made conventionally, some not, involving the ceramic egg beloved of natural winemakers. The results were fascinating."
Winemaker Peter Fraser explained about those eggs.

“My initial interest was driven by sourcing a vessel that would not impart barrel character but would not have the ‘plainness’ of a stainless steel vessel,” explains Fraser. “I looked into concrete, but I feel the chemicals used in making concrete are not very friendly, and if you have to wax or epoxy them, you are taking a step backwards and not forward. The ceramic eggs are not porous, but have similar thermal properties to concrete or clay vessels.

“A staunch biodynamic advocate would say the shape of the egg is very important, and that the shape causes constant thermal movement. I understand the logic, but I have not seen evidence that the lees in fact move within the wine as some of the promotional literature suggests. Disregarding any of the hocus pocus of eggs, we have been extremely happy with the results.”

Maybe at some future date we will get a verdict on some wine matured half-buried in the Yangarra ground. Surely comparing unburied to half-buried would be the ultimate wine options test.