Seeing it up close there Sicily viticulture appears today as a rich and colorful picture in which myriads of souls coexist, the infinite souls of wine.
There is the brio of the young people of Next Generation which tells of the enthusiasm and jovial side of Bacchus nectar. There is the vision of the second generations of the Founding fathers of Sicilian wine. There PRT , Planeta Rallo Tasca, continues the enlightened project of the parents and realizes it with quality, solidity and listening to the times that are in progress. There are the stubborn thirty-year-olds, winemakers of feeling, sensitive winemakers who synthesize their terroirs into nectars of pure energy. Someone even crossed Europe with one Fiat Palio aubergine color to make the wines of its remote and wonderful territory known to the whole world.
Sicily En Primeur: discovering the island’s wines
It just ended Sicily En Primeurthe beautiful event organized by Assovini Sicily. The association, which unites one hundred wineries in the region, every spring organizes five days of tastings, conferences and visits to the territories for sector journalists from all over the world. The 2024 edition restores the image of a united wine-growing region dedicated to enhancing its peculiarities.
In recent decades the Sicily of wine has changed a lot and has rolled up its sleeves to replace quantity with quality. It is a land that focuses on its native vines and which is gradually supplanting the French varieties, Syrah and Cabernet Franc among the reds and Chardonnay among the whites; to enhance the more local Nerello Mascalese, Frappato, Nocera and Perricone, as regards the dark berry varieties; Carricante, Grillo and Lucido, the former Catarratto, among the clear ones. The Sicilian vineyard is also the greenest in Italy, with the largest surface area dedicated to organic viticulture.
Sicily of wine: identity and sustainability in evolution
Today, on the large island in the center of the Mediterranean, many wineries, small and large, even the most statuesque coats of arms, are beginning to move towards more identifying and sustainable intentions. There is a regional denomination called Sicilia Doc, and a 360° sustainability protocol to which producers can voluntarily join. There is the ability to create a system, which is very rare among competing players in the same production sector. There are groups, noble and bourgeois families, Sicilian and otherwise, those who arrive from abroad, the mixed ones. It is a melting pot that quivers, or rather boils, the Sicily of wine.
More than a region, it is a continent that contains a world of history, art and breathtaking natural scenery. From the raven terraces of Etna colored with citrus fruits and vineyards, to the dazzling Aeolian islands and windy Pantelleria. From the salt pans of Marsala and Trapani, to the rolling hills planted with vines immediately behind the beaches, up to the mountain meadows of the hinterland with the rural elegance of the ancient farmhouses adorned with roses. There are the white and red sands of Vittoria, the green woods of Chiaramonte Gulfi and the mountains above Palermo, the legends of Monreale.
Classical, Byzantine, Arab, Norman, Sicily has been the center of the known world for millennia and every civilization has left something priceless and savorable between one glass and another. From the ancient vestiges of Mothia, to the archaeological parks of Segesta and Selinunte, from the medieval Romanesque of Erice to the baroque Ragusano; up to the surreal contemporary of Gibellina. Sicily contains multitudes and in each of them there is a wine to discover.
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