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VAL DI MAZARA

Val di Mazara is the largest of the three historic regions of Sicily. It includes Palermo, the capital city of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily in the twelfth century and of modern-day Sicily. Val di Mazara extends from the intensively cultivated vineyards of western Sicily to the island's interior, home to little more than vast tracts of high plains and steep hills that are blanketed by wheat fields and punctuated with isolated vineyards. In contrast with Val di Noto and Val Demone to its east, Val di Mazara historically was more influenced by the cultures of the Phoenicians and the Muslims than the Greeks. The vast landholdings known as latifondi also dominated it to a greater extent, from the Roman era through the nineteenth century. The two principal wine areas in the region are Val di Mazara—West, which comprises the island of Pantelleria, Marsala, and Western Sicily, and Val di Mazara—East, which includes the Palermo Highlands, Terre Sicane, Sicily-Center, and the Agrigento-Caltanissetta Highlands.

VAL DI MAZARA—WEST

PANTELLERIA

Legend has it that the Phoenician lunar goddess, Tanit, enamored of Apollo, attracted his attention by pouring Pantelleria wine instead of ambrosia into his goblet. Giacomo Casanova, the eighteenth-century adventurer, is said to have offered Pantelleria to his lovers. One sip of a modern-day Passito di Pantelleria convinces me that such tales are not far-fetched. The sweet wine of Pantelleria is Italy's most extravagant dessert wine.

MAP 2.

Val di Mazara—West

Though Pantelleria may seem to be off the beaten path, its strategic position in the Strait of Sicily was not overlooked by Benito Mussolini, who saw it as Italy's unsinkable aircraft carrier in the center of the Mediterranean Sea. He armed it to the gunnels, built an airport, ringed the island with roads, and refurbished the principal port at the town of Pantelleria. Unfortunately this attracted the Allies, who bombed it ferociously, leveling the town of Pantelleria and forcing the island's inhabitants to leave and take cover on Sicily and elsewhere in Italy. The Panteschi (the plural of Pantesco), as the Pantel-lerians are called, have seen more or less the same parade of occupiers as Sicilians on the main island. The Muslims left the most visible footprints: the white-domed stone houses called dammusi, the circular stone giardini arabi ("Arab gardens") that are built to shelter citrus trees from the relentless winds, and Arabic-sounding and -looking names such as that of the contrada Bukkuràm, meaning “rich in vines.”

Pantelleria is closer to Africa than to Europe, being sixty kilometers (thirty-seven miles) northeast of the Tunisian coast and one hundred kilometers (sixty-two miles) southwest of Sicily. With eighty-three square kilometers (fifty-two square miles) of surface, it is the largest of Sicily's offshore islands. Geologically speaking, Pantelleria is an infant. Not more than two hundred thousand years ago, successive eruptions pushed lava rock two thousand feet up from an undersea plain to create the jagged and craggy rock formations that characterize the island today. Its baroque shape and black-green volcanic rocks glistening in the azure Mediterranean waters suggest its epithet, the Black Pearl. The Panteschi, some seven thousand strong, impress even Sicily dwellers with their individualism. The winegrower Fabrizio Basile crowed to me that he does not feel Sicilian at all. But although Sicilians have difficulty uniting under a common cause, when Panteschi get together the results can be explosive.

Pantelleria's name evolved as its occupiers came and went, from the Punic-Phoenician Yrnm to the Greek Kòsuros or Kòssoura and to the Latin Cossura or Cossyra. The Muslims called it Qawsarah, phonetically related to Cossura. A Byzantine monastery dating from the sixth century A.D., Patelarèas or Patalarèas, is believed to be the origin of the modern name. Another theory is that Pantelleria derives from the Latin word tentorium ("tent"). It is no coincidence that on the island, the name of the walled area where grapes are laid out to raisin under an awning or sunshade is called a stenditoio con le tende ("drying area with awnings"). Beyond the mysteries of etymology, there can be no question that the drying of grapes into raisins (uve passe, the plural of uva passa) and the production of passito wines (made from dried grapes; from the verb appassire, meaning “to wither") have an ancient history here.

The passito wines of Pantelleria entered commerce in the late nineteenth century. They were even exported to England and the United States. In the early twentieth century Italian merchants sought out Pantelleria's fine raisins and sweet wines. To serve their needs, the Panteschi planted more vineyards. Vineyard surface reached its zenith in the 1920s, with more than fifty-eight hundred hectares (14,332 acres). More than three-quarters of the vines planted were Zibibbo.

Phylloxera arrived in 1928 and devastated vineyards throughout the next decade. Replanting on rootstocks began five years later, but World War II derailed progress. During and after the war the emigration of numerous Panteschi decimated the agricultural labor force. In the 1950s, vineyard surface was half that of the 1920s. Improved technology increased yields per hectare, resulting in total yields for the island that nearly achieved the levels of the 1920s. A great demand for passito wine set off a boom from 1965 to 1970. But decline set in again during the 1970s. Markets turned to seedless grapes for both eating and baking. Countries such as Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus could supply raisins at lower cost. Merchants preferred to buy dried Zibibbo grapes from Pantelleria and vinify the wine in Marsala and other Sicilian production facilities or in northern Italy. Zibibbo is another name for the variety Moscato di Alessandria. Piedmont merchants, long familiar with another member of the Muscat family, Moscato Bianco, became major purchasers and vinifiers of Pantelleria Zibibbo. Panteschi sold their best grapes to the table grape market and their best raisins to the confectionery industry. They used their worst grapes and raisins in the wines they drank. These were called ambrati, named for the murky amber of the liquid. Flaws obscured the wines’ quality.

Consistent with Muslim inheritance custom, heirs have divided land on Pantelleria for centuries. This creates a highly fractionalized pattern of land ownership. The prevalence of small land parcels makes economies of scale impossible and adds to labor costs. The island's rugged terrain also requires time-consuming and expensive manual labor. Because manufactured goods—and even drinking water—have to be shipped or flown to the island, the cost of living is higher than on Sicily's main island. Irrigation is not feasible, because Pantelleria has virtually no water resources other than its thermal springs. For all these reasons, Pantelleria wine costs more than comparable Sicilian wine. Panteschi winegrowers needed to make wines with cachet so that sophisticated and wealthy consumers would be willing to pay more for them. Their moment arrived in the 1990s, when Italians became wealthier and began purchasing more expensive wine. Celebrities, among them the Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani and the French actress Carole Bouquet, built vacation homes on the island, bringing more attention to it. They and a growing number of other affluent tourists increasingly visited the island—if not by yacht then by plane from Palermo or Trapani or by ferry from Palermo, Trapani, or Mazara del Vallo. For this breed of wine lover, the Italian wine market provided Super-Tuscans, Barolos, Angelo Gaja wines, and Brunello di Montalcinos, but no iconic “super” sweet wine.

What Marco De Bartoli failed to achieve for Marsala, he achieved, or almost achieved, for Pantelleria. In the early 1980s he saw the potential of the island's wines and began experimenting in Marsala with raisins that he bought from a grower on Pantelleria. His first vintage of Bukkuràm, a passito, was the 1984. With it and the others that followed, De Bartoli set new standards of quality and style for Passito di Pantelleria. The name Bukkuram and the design of its label evoked the island's Arabic past. The wine was golden and clear, infused with the exotic flavors of flowers and fruits commonly associated with Arabic gardens. Its texture was smooth and syrupy, and it had just enough sourness to make a clean exit. In the same year that De Bartoli came out with Bukkuram, the Pantesco winegrower Salvatore Murana made his first Martingana passito. Both wines bear the name of the contrada where their grapes were grown.

Gabriella Anca and Giacomo Rallo, the owners of the Donnafugata wine company on the main island of Sicily, needed dessert wines to complement their range of dry wines. In the late 1980s they rented a farm on Pantelleria with seven hectares (seventeen acres) and a winery. Based on their knowledge of what consumers wanted and on the advice of Sauternes and Tokay producers, they directed their enologists to craft fresher, fruitier, and tarter versions of Pantelleria wine. They launched a passito, Ben Rye, in 1989. Its freshness and higher acidity set it apart from the Passito di Pantellerias of other producers. Donnafugata enriches the base wine of its passito with dried grapes grown at some of the higher altitudes on the island, where the harvests are later. These give higher acidity to the wine. Kabir, a Moscato di Pantelleria, came later. It is a sweet late-harvest wine made from grapes dried on the vine after fully ripening. The 2010 Kabir was about 11.6 percent alcohol, reducing its weight but enhancing its freshness. Donnafugata owns the most vineyard surface on the island. As of 2008, the company sources grapes from some sixty-eight hectares (168 acres). It also buys grapes. All told it is the second-largest producer on the island, after Pellegrino.

Before building its winery in Marsala in 1992, the Pellegrino Marsala house consulted the Sauternes expert Denis Dubourdieu about how to improve Pantelleria wine. Based on his experience with similar French products, such as Muscat de Frontignan and Muscat de Beaumes de Venise, he helped Pellegrino achieve a style of Zibibbo passito that emphasized lightness and purity. Pellegrino's Passito di Pantelleria Nes, which it sells under the Duca di Castelmonte brand, expresses this more natural style. It has hints of orange and cedar in the nose and is more viscous than sweet on the palate.

I attended a wine conference on the island in 1995. Pantelleria then seemed on the edge of fame. At the meeting, tempers flared when the discussion came to what methods should be allowed for drying grapes. Traditionally grapes dried in the open air in the sun. The DOC regulations specify this method and allow for exceptional protection of drying grapes during inclement weather. Since 1951, however, drying machines had also been in use on the island. Essentially, these are fans that blow humidity away from the harvested grapes. This is particularly important in the first few days of drying because a great deal of water evaporates from the stems then. The resulting humidity provides an ideal environment for rapid mold growth. Over the years, many drying machines with a variety of systems for controlling ambient humidity have been used. Tubular polyethylene tents (serre, the plural of serra) were introduced in the mid-1980s for all types of fruit production in Sicily. They not only sped up the rate of desiccation but also protected the grapes from inclement weather. While the drying machines were used in open air and reduced the temperature around the grapes, the tunnels increased the temperature during the drying process. At the 1995 conference, De Bartoli, then the president of the Istituto Regionale della Vite e del Vino (IRVV, “Regional Institute of Vine and Wine"), argued that the law should be changed to allow methods that were not traditional but still respected grape quality. Panteschi winemakers, however, suspected that merchants wanted this flexibility so they could industrialize production. I learned at that meeting how argumentative Panteschi can be. The current law bans drying machines but allows drying in polyethylene tunnels when weather threatens the drying process. Since there are no specific regulations determining what is and is not threatening weather, drying in tunnels is commonplace. Furthermore, the law allows tubular tents for general use as long as they have openings along the sides to let air flow through. The fractious chatter that I heard in 1995 about who was really drying grapes under the sun and who was taking quasi-legal shortcuts still occurs today.

Moscato di Pantelleria DOC and Passito di Pantelleria DOC are the vinous crown jewels of the island. The regulations governing them are similar. Both must be made from late-harvest Zibibbo dried in the sun while still attached to the vine, with some additional grapes dried off the vine. In practice, Moscato di Pantelleria is lighter and less sweet than Passito di Pantelleria. To get the extra sweetness and concentration for Passito di Pantelleria, producers add more grapes that have been dried off the vine. These contain less water, so their sugar content is higher and the compounds in their skin and pulp are more concentrated. Beyond Moscato di Pantelleria DOC and Passito di Pantelleria DOC, there is a more expansive appellation, Pantelleria DOC, which includes six wine types, from sparkling (spumante) to fortified (liquoroso). DOC regulations for all of these require bottling in Sicily. There is a long history, however, of Marsala houses in Trapani and merchants from northern Italy, particularly Piedmont, buying Pantelleria grapes and raisins and making wine according to their own specifications and needs. Well into the 1990s Panteschi winegrowers were suspicious that extra-Sicily bottling was occurring and that wines illegally labeled as Moscato di Pantelleria DOC and Passito di Pantelleria DOC were infiltrating commercial networks. They also suspected that Marsala houses were making Pantelleria wines of all types with grapes from other sources. Rumors continue. Some Panteschi have lobbied for a law that would make it obligatory to bottle all Pantelleria wines on their island. This would help ensure that such wines were made with 100 percent Pantelleria grapes. It would also encourage people to associate these wines with Pantelleria and its wine community rather than Marsala and its wine community. Current law requires all DOC wines to be vinified on Pantelleria. Producers must bottle Moscato and Passito di Pantelleria DOC wines on Pantelleria, except that certain grandfathered producers may bottle them elsewhere in Sicily. If producers wanted to change the appellation status for both Moscato di Pantelleria and Passito di Pantelleria or only the latter from DOC to DOCG, the issue of obligatory vinification and bottling on Pantelleria would become even more contentious. DOCG regulations generally obligate bottling within the boundaries of the appellation.

On the other hand, many Panteschi do not want to lose the business of Marsala merchants. The house of Pellegrino alone processes more than half the wine grapes from the island. Marsala merchants do not see how quality would increase by bottling Moscato di Pantelleria and Passito di Pantelleria on Pantelleria. It would certainly increase their production costs. They would be forced to duplicate facilities and forgo economies of scale. Plus, shipping wine in bulk is less expensive than shipping it in bottle. For these reasons, the movement among some producers to require on-island bottling has not gone far. On the other hand, Pantelleria wine law requires that the addition of distillates to liquoroso versions of Moscato di Pantelleria DOC and Passito di Pantelleria DOC occur on the island. Pellegrino, a large producer of these versions, built a vinification facility on Pantelleria in 1992 expressly to conduct this fortification. It has also continued to bottle off-island. De Bartoli and Murana too have built wineries and bottle their wine on the island. In 2006 Donnafugata built a winery inside a Pantelleria dammusi, but it had no room for a bottling line. A Sicilian company with a sizable presence on the island, Miceli, has its bottling facility off-island, in the township of Sciacca. In fact, most Pantelleria wine is bottled off-island. Notwithstanding the requirement that Moscato and Passito di Pantelleria DOC wines be bottled on Pantelleria, the law exempts those producers that had bottled such wines for at least one year in Sicily prior to its enactment to bottle such wines off-island. During our visit to Pantelleria, ex-agricultural minister Calogero Mannino, owner of Abraxas, expressed frustration with this loophole that allows off-island bottling of its two crown jewels: “La deroga è piu grande della regola!” ("The exception is greater than the rule!"). As an on-island bottler—and an architect of Italy's Wine Law 164—he knows that bottling on Pantelleria cements the identity of these wines to that of the island.

Another issue that has both history and currency is the way in which fortified Pantelleria wine negatively impacts the market for Moscato and Passito di Pantelleria. For centuries merchants have fortified wines to make them seaworthy. In 1992 Pellegrino began producing a fortified Moscato di Pantelleria. Now it produces a Pantelleria Moscato Liquoroso and a Pantelleria Passito Liquoroso under the Duca di Castelmonte brand. Miceli also produces liquoroso wine, as do several other merchants, mostly in Marsala. The production costs of fortified versions of Pantelleria Moscato and Passito DOC are much lower than those of unfortified versions. Retail prices show the difference. Sweetness levels mirror those of unfortified versions. The alcohol levels of Pantelleria Passito Liquoroso and Passito di Pantelleria are close, 15 and 14.5 percent respectively. In general, fortified and unfortified wines taste very similar. Producers of unfortified Moscato and Passito di Pantelleria are concerned that consumers cannot easily recognize the difference, though labels state liquoroso when applicable, along with the higher alcohol percentage. Pantelleria wine producers not making the liquoroso versions, among them many Panteschi, also claim that the cheaper versions are trading on the reputations of their “natural” counterparts.

At the 1995 conference, Murana and other local producers expressed hope that Panteschi could achieve something special in the wine world. This quickly erupted into heated arguments among Panteschi and between Panteschi and non-Panteschi. On the heels of that conference, some producers accused others of illegal wine sophistication. In 2004 a Pantesco winegrower made allegations to authorities against several other producers that resulted in court cases. At the beginning of 2009, eleven out of the seventeen accused were absolved. The resolution of the accusations against the other six was postponed. Not only are the island's vineyards fractionalized, but so are its inhabitants. Few Pantesco restaurants feature local wine. This demonstrates the lack of island self-determination. It is easier to make money from tourism than from agriculture or wine production. The average age of those who work in the vineyards is more than sixty years. There awaits no next generation of Panteschi winegrowers. At a meeting in 2010, Murana told me that all the hopes he had nurtured during the 1980s and early 1990s have evaporated.

Putting the problems of the Panteschi aside, their island is an exciting location for viticulture. More than fifty volcanic vents, now extinct, have formed conical hills of volcanic debris. These geologic formations are called kuddie (the plural of kuddia) or cuddie (the plural of cuddia). Their names, mostly Arabic in origin, identify the localities that surround them. Wine producers also name their wines after kuddie. In doing so, they identify the location of production. The island's many thermal springs, some of whose temperatures reach 100°C (212°F), evidence volcanic activity, which is diminishing. Its highest point, Montagna Grande, reaches 836 meters (2,743 feet) above sea level. The sharp inclines of jagged-edged volcanic rocks have forced humans over the centuries to build terraces to create cultivatable patches of soil.

The greenish black rocks that dominate and characterize the island are made of pantellerite. They have a low pH and are rich in sodium. The rocks erode into porous sandy soils. The pumice in these soils is filled with tiny cavities that absorb dew at night. Because these soils are light and soft and drain well, contact with them rarely damages low-lying vine vegetation. They are also very fertile.

Pantelleria's climate is maritime-Mediterranean, with hot summers and mild winters. The average annual temperature is 19°C (66°F). Temperatures average 11°C (52°F) in the winter and 25°C (77°F) in the summer. The island gets about three hundred millimeters (twelve inches) of rain per year spread over fewer than fifty days, mostly between November and February. July is a parched month, with an average of two and a half millimeters (0.09 inches) of rain. The island has few streams, but dry stone and gravel beds become torrents during the winter. One important factor is the wind, which blows at an average of twenty kilometers (twelve miles) per hour more than 320 days per year. Different exposures on the island are subject to winds from different directions. Winds can be very strong from mid-May to June, knocking off tender shoots and impairing flowering. The vines are dug into holes and trained low to the ground to get cover. The scirocco is feared most. Along with its winds, it can bring so much heat that the vines become comatose and the grapes wither on the vine. At Scauri, a port on the southwest coastline, Donnafugata loses one harvest in three because of the scirocco.

Zibibbo became increasingly popular from the beginning of the twentieth century. Its triple use—for table grapes, raisins, and wine—strengthened market demand. Zibibbo accounts for 90 percent of the vines planted on the island. The white grape varieties Catarratto and Inzolia and the red grape varieties Perricone and Alicante (Grenache Noir) make up most of the balance. Alberello pantesco is the training system of tradition and choice. On the wind-shielded plains of Ghirlanda and Monastero, some row training on wires is employed.

The normal harvest begins during the second decade of July and ends during the last decade of September. There is a small second harvest in October, of buds on secondary shoots (femminelle, the plural of femminella). The small bunches (about ten grapes each) of tart, low-alcohol grapes (racemi, the plural of racemo) yield a refreshing table wine consumed locally. The earliest-harvested grapes are reputed to make the best passito wines. They come from the warmest areas, at low elevations and close to the sea. These grapes have higher sugar and are in perfect condition. The weather remains sunny, hot, and dry for the drying period, from the first harvest in early August to the end of September. The yields at such sites, however, are low, about forty-five quintals per hectare (4,015 pounds per acre). Higher and cooler sites make better dry table wine. The highest vineyards on the island are at about four hundred meters (1,312 feet) for white grapes and three hundred meters (984 feet) for red grapes.

If it takes the same amount of grapes to make five bottles of normal dry wine as one bottle of Passito di Pantelleria, where does that missing volume go? Water vapor escapes through the drying grape skins, concentrating all the other grape constituents. Traditionally winegrowers laid out the grapes on mats or nets in an area (stenditoio) enclosed by walls. The walls collect heat, raising the ambient temperature by about 10°C (18°F). The drying process is faster at higher temperatures. The faster it is done, the less chance there is that the insects, weather, mold, or other factors will compromise the raisins. Many producers cover their grapes at night to protect them from nighttime humidity and dew. An awning or other covering at the ready also serves to protect the grapes from inclement weather. Drying grapes have to be monitored carefully. Just as a chef flips an egg in a frying pan, a winegrower must turn over each bunch regularly, to ensure even drying and to check for fungus. During the drying period a stenditoio smells like hot apple pie.

There are two degrees of drying, passolata and passa Malaga. Passolata grapes are semidried, spending one to two weeks under the sun. Twenty-five to 40 percent of their juice is sugar. The little juice still inside the berry is just enough to macerate the skins in and to vinify the skins and juice. Passolata grapes look as wizened as Amarone grapes. The processes for drying them are similar to those used in the Veneto region for Amarone production. After three to four weeks of drying, fresh grapes become fully dried raisins, called uva passa Malaga. Though they are soft and pliable, they do not contain enough liquid but must instead be either soaked in juice or wine or tossed into a fermenting must for maceration. Aromatic compounds are at peak concentration at this point. Further drying decreases the aromas. Grapes can be dried for as long as three to four weeks, at which point 55 percent of their syrup becomes sugar. After such extreme drying, grapes are one-quarter of their original weight. During the drying process, aromas transition from orange and muscat to dried figs and dates.

Though the Pantelleria climate is rather steady, there are still occurrences that can alter the quantity and quality of the harvest and drying periods. Excessive drought in 1982, 1988, and 2003 reduced yields. In 1996 and 2007 downy mildew decimated yields. It can occasionally rain during the drying period. Francesca Minardi of Azienda Vinicola Minardi told me that rain during the drying period in 2004 forced her to vinify her drying grapes sooner than planned.

Using serre reduces the drying time dramatically. These enclosures intensify the heat. Three to four days is sufficient for passolata and seven to eight days for passa Malaga. By law, producers may use serre with air vents, whose drying period is longer than that of unvented tents but shorter than drying in open air. It is easy to understand why many producers use these enclosures. Another way to speed up the process is to first immerse grapes in hot water mixed with caustic soda. The bath removes their bloom, thus speeding up the evaporation of the juice. However, this also reduces aromatic compounds. The skins of grapes treated this way appear paler, hence their name uva passa bionda, meaning “blond dried grape.” The DOC does not allow this use of caustic soda.

Though machines can destem the harvested grapes, this grows increasingly difficult as they become more raisined. Traditionally women destemmed raisined grapes while sitting around a large table. By hand is still the commonest way to destem uva passa Malaga.

The traditional method of making Passito di Pantelleria is to add uva passa Malaga to fresh Zibibbo grapes in fermentation. This is very similar to how Hungary's sweet Tokaji Aszú wines are made. The raisins add flavor and sugar. When fermentation reaches the desired residual sugar and alcohol levels, the wine is drained and the skins pressed. There are, however, many different options that Pantelleria winegrowers can use to alter the process and the end result. Passolata grapes can be used. Some producers cold-macerate harvested grapes for up to three weeks. Some winegrowers rehydrate the paste of the fermented skins in wine and then press it to extract more fruit sugar, which they add back to the fermenting must or wine.

After fermentation the sweet wines are clarified and stabilized using static cold sedimentation aided by fining agents. Before bottling they are usually sent through diatomaceous earth filters. During these processes, concrete, stainless steel, fiberglass, or oak barrels are used as containers. Concrete vats exist in older wineries. If they have no cracks, they can be excellent containers. Stainless steel tanks are easiest to clean, and micro-oxygenation can reduce their tendency to give wines pungent, vegetal smells. Fiberglass tanks are more common on Pantelleria than in other wine-producing zones. Concern about styrene, a hazardous chemical, is reducing their use. Large oak barrels generally have been phased out. They are too difficult to keep clean. Some producers use a percentage of new, small-format barrels in their mix of maturation vessels. These give flavor and oxygenate the wines somewhat. Most producers do not mature their sweet wines for long periods after fermentation. De Bartoli, on the other hand, matures Bukkuram in used barriques for two years before bottling.

Because Moscato di Pantelleria and Passito di Pantelleria are not only the island's most prestigious categories but also its most widely recognized throughout the world, I have focused this discussion on them. The Passito is darker, golden amber, with a strong scent of raisins, dates, and dried apricots. The Moscato is more golden and has some fresh apricot aroma mixed in with the dried. It also has some floral scents. The Passito is more viscous, sweet, and alcoholic than the Moscato. Moscato Liquoroso and Passito Liquoroso lack the concentration of the unfortified versions. They are available in many markets, and consumers interested in understanding Pantelleria wines should be aware of the difference.

Murana, the island's most famous native wine producer, makes an aromatic dry wine, Gadì, from Zibibbo racemi that he collects in October from several sites. His farm center is at Mueggen, which he calls “an island within an island.” It is an isolated plateau in the interior at an altitude of four hundred meters (1,312 feet). Here Zibibbo is harvested in mid-September, several weeks later than at his other sources. These grapes are used in Turbè, a light Moscato di Pantelleria whose sweetness is balanced by its 13 percent alcohol. Mueggen and Khamma are both Passito di Pantellerias that move the alcohol and the sweetness up a degree. Martingana is a single-vineyard wine from the southeastern coast. The vineyard was planted in 1932. The old vines there can ripen their grapes in the area's extreme warmth of August. Murana selects the best grapes from this vineyard and dries them outdoors for thirty to forty days.

Three artisanal producers, Salvatore Ferrandes, Fabrizio Basile, and Salvino Gorgone, each farm several hectares and make tiny quantities of wines. Ferrandes, whose father also grew grapes and made wine, is building his own winery and will be installing a bottling line. His wines are concentrated, very sweet and viscous, and loaded with the smell of honey and dates. He was proud to tell me that they contain 170 grams per liter (twenty-three ounces per gallon) of sugar; the minimum by law is 110 grams (fifteen ounces per gallon). He says that for every Passito di Pantelleria he makes, he could make five bottles of dry wine. To help fund his passito production, Ferrandes grows, harvests, and sells the island's prized capers. During my visit, his teenage son Adrian accompanied him and demonstrated a genuine appreciation for the fruit that his father grows. Time will tell if he will be in the next generation of this vanishing breed. Basile is also the son of winegrowers. His grandfather too was a grape grower. His father helped Basile set up his winery, where he also intends to create a small restaurant. His Shamira Passito di Pantelleria 2007 is delicate and light. Gorgone, like many Panteschi winegrowers, has another job that helps support him, one that serves the brisk tourist trade. He is a builder. He farms only three hectares (seven acres). His wines have a pure, fresh, and lively taste, the hallmarks of the modern style. He has a brand-new winery, Dietro L'Isola, but uses another facility on the island for bottling.

Abraxas espouses a style somewhere between those of Donnafugata and Murana. Its Passito di Pantelleria is very spicy. Scirafi, the Abraxas second-tier Passito di Pantelleria, is based on first pressings, rather than the tarter, more delicate free-run juice, and on the addition of less-dried grapes during vinification. The former Italian agricultural minister Calogero Mannino, famous for his advocacy of the Italian (and Sicilian) wine industry, established Abraxas in 1999 as an oasis where he could escape the intrigues of the political world. Abraxas has twenty-six hectares (sixty-four acres) of land, making it one of the largest growers on the island. Four hectares (ten acres) are in the contradas of Bukkuràm and Scirafi at 125 meters (410 feet), a warm site ideal for making Passito di Pantelleria. Twenty-two hectares (fifty-four acres) straddle the Mueggen and Randazzo contradas. These vineyards are at three to four hundred meters (984 to 1,312 feet) in one of the coolest sites for viticulture on the island. The vineyards here are sizable and flat, allowing for wire training and some mechanization. Beyond its Passito di Pantellerias, Abraxas makes a dry white wine and several red wines. The white is Kuddia del Gallo, a 70 percent Zibibbo, 30 percent Viognier blend. It combines the exotic smells and fat, rich, slightly bitter tastes of both vine varieties. Abraxas is the island's red wine leader in quantity and quality. My favorite is Kuddia di Zè, a blend of 50 percent Syrah, 30 percent Grenache, and 20 percent Carignan.

Due to the high cost of production and the paucity of land suitable for still dry wine production on Pantelleria, it is unlikely that we will see many dry wines from there on the international market. The first such was De Bartoli's Pietranera, first released in 1990. This dry, cold-fermented Zibibbo remains the reference point for varietal Zibibbo. Giacomo Tachis believed that Pantelleria could produce top-quality red wines. At the 1995 conference, he told me that while the north of Italy made tart and hard-textured wines that needed long aging in barrique to soften, the Pantelleria climate could achieve suppleness without barriques. He pointed to the sunny sky: “That is Pantelleria's barricaia [a maturation room containing barriques].” Tachis thought that the ultimate skin ripeness achievable in Pantelleria's cooler zones could naturally produce deeply colored, rich, supple red wines. He suggested the use of Carignan, based on his experience with the variety in the similar growing environment of Sardinia. Varieties introduced into Tunisia during its French colonial period could be a source of vine wood for producers interested in making Rhone-style wines, which the Italian wine industry has not mastered. I hope that Abraxas's red wines move in this direction. Its high-altitude site, its state-of-the art boutique winery, built in an isolated Italian army barrack from World War II, and the combined expertise of its consultant Nicola Centonze and full-time enologist Michele Augugliaro are assets that can help it achieve this feat.

On Pantelleria we find both winegrowers and entrepreneurs. Will there be a next generation of native winegrowers? What is likely is that outside wealth will create boutique estates that present the mystique and the image but not the reality of the Pantesco winegrower. That wealth, though it may preserve the wine, will not represent its spirit. Murana told me that Pantelleria wine production is becoming “a sport of the rich for the rich.”

Other recommended producers and their wines:

Cantine Rallo Passito di Pantelleria

Carole Bouquet Sangue d'Oro Passito di Pantelleria

Case di Pietra Niká Passito di Pantelleria

D'Ancona e Figli Cimillýa Passito di Pantelleria

Miceli Entellechia Passito di Pantelleria

Miceli Yanir Passito di Pantelleria

Serragghia di Giotto Bini Moscato di Pantelleria

Solidea Passito di Pantelleria

MARSALA

A century troubled by two world wars and one Great Depression did little to support Marsala, a product that depends on international trade and economic stability. After World War II, Marsala producers increasingly combined their wine with the flavors of nuts, fruits, spices, and eggs to attract more customers with different tastes. Food industries and consumers purchased these “Marsala"s for culinary preparations and for the enhancement and preservation of various foods. The popularity of the so-called Marsala Speciali caused the image of Marsala to transition from sophisticated beverage to commodity product indirectly consumed as an ingredient. The most challenging problem that Marsala—like Sherry and Madeira, its two prototypes—has faced has been the shift in consumer tastes from oxidized fortified wines to fruity table wines.

The market deterioration has been dramatic. As of 1921 there were about fifty enological companies in Marsala. After World War II there was a proliferation of Marsala companies, mostly small, that capitalized on commercializing the wine and priced it so as to undercut the established Marsala houses. By 1950 there were 226 such operations. By 1970 about a hundred Marsala producers remained. There were only fifteen in 2010, when a bottle of Fine Marsala could be purchased for as little as one and a half euro. The final slap was the “Is Marsala a bluff?” debate that took place on a Sicilian wine blog, “Cronache di Gusto,” from April to June 2010. Will Marsala survive?

Though John Woodhouse modeled Marsala after Madeira, Benjamin Ingham moved its style more toward that of Sherry. He incorporated Sherry techniques such as maturation by solera, a system that homogenizes wine quality and style by systematically blending younger with older wine. As with Sherry, in Marsala production, grape spirit is added to a fully fermented dry white wine. Though red grapes were used to make ruby Marsalas during the nineteenth century, and though the 1984 revision of the Marsala production disciplinary reinstated a ruby version, rubino, made mostly with red grapes, Marsala is largely a fortified white wine. Before the mid-nineteenth century the triad of Catarratto, Inzolia, and Grillo dominated Sicilian vineyards. Inzolia proved to be too vulnerable to powdery mildew, which attacked in the mid-nineteenth century. Grillo largely took its place until the end of the nineteenth century. Grown in alberello, Grillo grapes are harvested when their sugar is high and can be naturally vinified into 14 to 17 percent alcohol wines. From 1900 to 1920, when phylloxera necessitated the replanting of vineyards, farmers opted to plant the higher-yielding Catarratto instead of Grillo. Catarratto produces lower-alcohol wines than Grillo. Rectified concentrated grape juice can be added to Catarratto musts to increase the base wine alcohol degree. More grape spirit can to be added to fortify the wine. Purists perceive this greater reliance on added grape sugar and spirit as a move away from connection to place and toward a concocted industrial product. Catarratto wine tends to oxidize rapidly, darkening as it does so, but this is just what Marsala producers want, particularly for the styles identified by the word ambra ("amber"). To encourage oxidation even more, they splash the base wines in open air during the racking process. After World War II, the quality of Marsala's base wines deteriorated. Since 1984 the white variety Damaschino has been allowed in Marsala production. Its high yields and low-alcohol wine do not endear it to purists.

Once they have made and blended the base wines, Marsala producers add grape spirit to make Vergine. This, the purest type of Marsala, has no other additions. To the Fine and Superiore styles, producers can add coloring and flavoring products. Fine and Superiore evolved when early Marsala producers needed to adjust the appearance, smell, and taste of immature Vergine to suit the preferences of a buyer. Brand names originally devised for particular markets became the internationally recognized names for styles of Marsala, for example Italy Particular (IP), Superior Old Marsala (SOM), London Particular (LP), and Garibaldi Dolce (GD). Each producer has its own recipes for styles and brands, and every one must satisfy the Marsala DOC regulations. Each recipe, called a concia, prescribes additions of grape spirit, sifone ("sweet fortified wine"), mosto cotto ("cooked must"), and rectified concentrated grape juice. Before a producer blends in these additions, he must declare to regulatory authorities which lots will become what regulated types of Marsala. Changes to this declaration cannot be made. Hence a wine declared as a Fine must remain a Fine even if it matures for many years in barrel without additions, like a Vergine. When they add grape spirit, producers must take into account the concentration or dilution that other additions and evaporative rates during maturation will cause. Before bottling they can make a final spirit addition to meet the 17 percent alcohol by volume minimum required for Fine and the 18 percent minimum for other styles.

Understanding the various ingredients of the concia is essential to understanding what makes Marsala. To make sifone, also called mistella, spirit from late-harvested grapes is added to fermenting grape juice, cutting its fermentation short. Sifone provides sweetness and a syrupy texture. During Marsala maturation, it also enhances the development of specific aromas. In Marsala Superiore, the percentage of sifone in the concia is greater than that of the dry base wine, perhaps even double it. Sifone accounts for the greatest percentage of constituents in the dolce version of Superiore, particularly the type labeled oro ("golden"). Mosto cotto provides another range of aromas, similar to burned sugar or caramel. Its principal function, which purists look down on, is to tint Marsala dark brown, a hue that could otherwise be achieved by long maturation in barrel. Mosto cotto is principally used in Marsala labeled ambra. Rectified concentrated grape juice can be added to fine-tune the sweetness and viscosity of Marsala. Purists frown upon it too. By law, sifone, mosto cotto, and spirit used in Marsala must be derived from grapes grown in the Marsala DOC.

The difference between Fine and Superiore is maturation time. A Fine needs to mature one year, the first four months of which may be in a nonwooden container. For the eight remaining months, the container must be wooden. The Superiore must age at least two years in wood. There is a longer-matured category of Superiore, Superiore Riserva. It must mature in a wooden container at least four years before being bottled. For all Marsala styles, oak and cherry are the two wood types allowed. The barrels are never entirely filled. This allows a steady oxidation of the wine. A cool, somewhat humid, and dark environment is best for maturation. Fine, Superiore, and Superiore Riserva can also be labeled to indicate color: oro for golden, ambra for amber, and rubino for ruby. The labels for residual sweetness level are secco (dry, less than forty grams per liter [five ounces per gallon]), semisecco (semidry, between forty and one hundred grams per liter), and dolce (sweet, more than one hundred grams per liter [thirteen ounces per gallon]). Fine and Superiore labeled ambra must contain at least 1 percent mosto cotto. Fine and Superiore rubinos must have at least 70 percent Pignatello (a variety called Perricone in the Palermo area), as well as Nero d'Avola or Nerello Mascalese.

If the producer were to add only grape spirits to the base wine and then age it for at least five years, he could release it as a Vergine. After five more years he could release it as a Vergine Riserva or Vergine Stravecchio. If producers use the solera maturation system, then they can print Vergine Soleras or simply Soleras on the label. In a solera system, younger wine systematically replaces older wine that has been removed from barrels for bottling or further blending. Thus Soleras do not carry a vintage year, whereas some Vergines do.

Marsala Vergine should be pale gold, with an intense nutty nose accented with citrus. In the mouth, it should be soft and savory. Dry Oloroso Sherry has a bitter finish that Marsala Vergine does not. Unfortunately, a minuscule amount of Vergine is produced. As of 2010, Marsala Vergine accounts for only 0.7 percent of production, while Marsala Superiore represents 18.6 percent, and Marsala Fine has the largest share, 80.7 percent.1 Vergine wines can be splendid. Some develop a rancio or leathery smell with age. Some tasters like this smell. Some do not, me included. The clean smell I prefer may be less exotic than one with a rancio character, but for me it is more pure. In general, the more Grillo in the blend of a Vergine, the paler the color, the spicier and nuttier the smell, and the more viscous and finely astringent the texture.

If a specific year appears on a wine that says Soleras on the front or back label, it must refer to something other than the age of the wine. Some houses use their founding year as part of the branding on the front label. Examples are Pellegrino 1880 and Intorcia 1930. If aging in barrel exceeds the minimum amount required by law, producers sometimes specify so on the label. Ten years is the minimum aging period for the Vergine Riserva category. A wine labeled Vergine Riserva 20 anni has had an additional ten years of maturation.

The government revised the Marsala wine production regulations and labeling in 1984. The new law, referred to as 851, attempted to restore tradition to Marsala. After World War II, Marsala merchants sourced grapes from beyond the borders of the province of Trapani, in the provinces of Palermo and Agrigento. The new law restricted such sourcing to the province of Trapani, excluding the township of Alcamo, Favignana (one of the Egadì Islands), and Pantelleria, all in the province. In addition, Marsala wine had to be produced and bottled within the new boundaries. The law also restricted the use of cooked must and, most important, banned Marsala Speciale, the Marsala flavored by spices, fruits, and so forth that had gained popularity after World War II. One popular egg, or zabaglione, style that used to be known as Marsala all'Uovo had its supporters even among expert tasters. It was left in the disciplinare as cremovo zabaione vino aromatizzato or cremovo vino aromatizzato, with a requirement of at least 80 percent Marsala. The word Cremovo, not Marsala, dominates the front label of such wines. Products with 60 percent or more Marsala may have the phrase Preparato con l'impiego di vino Marsala ("Prepared with the use of Marsala wine") on their label. If made with less than 60 percent Marsala, the product may still list the wine among the ingredients. These and other changes helped put Marsala back on a more traditional track.

Periodically wine journalists criticize the Marsala houses for the low quality of Marsala wine and the continually worsening image of the industry. Many have been the remedies proposed to restore the industry to good health. Some suggest decreasing the legal yield limits (presently one hundred quintals per hectare [8,919 pounds per acre] for whites and ninety quintals per hectare [8,028 pounds per acre] for reds), raising the minimum alcohol levels allowed for base wines, and banning the use of cooked and concentrated must. Some say producers have chased the low-cost Fine market at the expense of developing the traditional and quality side of the industry. Most Fine is sold to the food industry expressly for flavor enhancement and preservation. But if quality were higher across the board, would more Marsala be sold? Unfortunately, current consumer flavor preferences limit any possible improvement in the market. Marsala was conceived for a world without refrigeration, in which the need for asepsis was not widely understood and transportation challenged the stability of what was purchased. The world has changed. Although most of the fruits and vegetables in our supermarkets now come from thousands of miles away, they are still fresh when we buy them. Modern consumers regularly appreciate the flavors of fresh fruit. They prefer fruity to oxidized wines.

The Marsala industry as a whole should not try to remake its image. Unless the world drastically changes, a remake will not succeed. The core identity of Marsala must be preserved, just like our finest art and historical monuments. That core identity comes from the Marsala of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, when Vergine was its defining style.

Though Woodhouse fortified his Marsala and subsequent wine law has obligated fortification, there is no reason why it should not be optional. Pre-1960s wine producers in Sicily regularly produced wines with between 14 and 17 percent alcohol. The crucial factors that made and still make this possible are Grillo, alberello, and Marsala's warm, dry, and windy climate. Cellar maturation in dry conditions raises the alcohol content even higher. The minimum alcohol percentage at bottling for Marsala Vergine should be set lower, at 16 percent, to allow for unfortified versions bearing a new Marsala Vergine DOCG label. Producers of the Marsala Vergine DOCG would be required to state whether the wine was fortified or not. If fortification were an option, not a rule, those producers who wanted to challenge themselves by forgoing fortification could point the way toward a Marsala that more truly represented and featured the wine of origin. Unfortified Marsala Vergine would bring Marsala back to its pre-Woodhouse, genuinely Sicilian roots.

Casano (founded 1940).This small family-run house has vineyards that supply 50 percent of the grapes needed for its Marsala and three table wines. Third-generation siblings Francesca and Francesco Intorcia are breathing new life into the company. The smart design of its website demonstrates how Marsala could better present itself to the world.

Florio (founded 1833).The ILLVA di Saronno drinks group, which has owned Florio since 1998, purchased the Duca di Salaparuta winery in 2001. ILLVA consolidated both companies into Duca di Salaparuta, retaining the facilities and brands of each. Florio is now an umbrella brand for Marsala made by the Duca di Salaparuta company. The labels use the branding Cantine Florio 1833. These wines mature at the Florio baglio, seaside at Marsala. The quality of Florio Marsala has remained stable through these transitions. Florio, like other Marsala producers, has a range of branded products, including Marsala, fortified wines, and wines from the islands of Pantelleria and Salina. It sources the grapes for its Marsalas from along the coast, just like the early Marsala industry. Moreover, Florio bases the blends for its Marsala Superiore Riservas and Vergines on Grillo grown in alberello. They age for eight years in oak barrel. Their pale golden color, clean nutty bouquet, and rich, savory palate are characteristics of the pure style that I appreciate most. These Marsalas are pure, solid, and elegant. Florio makes two excellent Vergines, Terre Arse and Baglio Florio. The Donna Franca Marsala Superiore Semisecco Ambra, matured for fifteen years, blunts the spice and power of the Vergines with an edge of sweetness.

Marco De Bartoli (founded 1978).Born into the elite Marsala merchant world, the mercurial Marco De Bartoli raced cars during the 1970s while working at the Pellegrino and Mirabella Marsala houses. Warned by scrapes with disaster on the roads and disillusioned with how the Marsala industry chased profits rather than quality and identity, he retired to take the reins of his family's farm at Samperi. While Marsala houses were going out of business in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he was buying up the finest reserves, creating a collection that would give his Marsala that je ne sais quoi of character. He was the most outspoken supporter of the Grillo variety. His most controversial wine (there were many controversies that swirled around him) was Vecchio Samperi Ventennale 20 anni. It was 100 percent Grillo. He kept his yields so low (twenty hectoliters per hectare [214 gallons per acre]) that his base wines naturally reached about 16.5 percent alcohol. After twenty years in a solera system, which raised the alcohol level through the evaporation of water from the wine, the wine was bottled at roughly 17.5 percent alcohol without the addition of grape spirits. Because the alcohol percentage was less than the legal minimum of 18 percent, De Bartoli was not allowed to label this wine as a Marsala but as a vino liquoroso (which was not true, since it was never fortified). Because Vecchio Samperi was 100 percent wine, it represented the terroir more truthfully than any Marsala could. It also was closer to the type of wine, vino perpetuo, that the inhabitants of Marsala made before the arrival of John Woodhouse in 1773. In the summer of 2010 De Bartoli told me, “A good wine must have an alcohol grade high enough to age well. There need to be good vineyards. But since 1963 the law permits the possibility of making Marsala from grapes that would make a wine of about 8 percent alcohol. This makes shit, big shit. It cannot age. In 1980 I first released Vecchio Samperi. This was a real Marsala, but I was not allowed by law to identify it as Marsala on the label. The wines were very well received. Despite the great reputation of Vecchio Samperi, it was not easy to sell. I sold very little because of the reputation of Sicily, of Marsala, and of Pantelleria. However, I am not of Sicily, Marsala, or Pantelleria. I am De Bartoli, who makes Samperi and Bukkuram. This is the moral of the fable. I am a producer of quality wine, not Sicilian wine. I went outside and they treated me as if I were an outlaw. I had a sack of problems and they made a party out of it. But it does not bother me. To live in Sicily is not easy.” In March 2011, De Bartoli died at the age of sixty-six years. He was an artist working in the world of business and politics. His two sons, Renato and Sebastiano, and his daughter, Josephine, are now in charge of the family business.

Martinez (founded 1866).Fifty percent of the production of this small, family-owned house is Marsala. The other half is other types of fortified wines. The company owns no vineyards, preferring to buy base wine. Its Marsala wines emphasize purity and delicacy. The Vergine Riserva “Vintage 1995” is pale, with a delicate nose of dried fruits and orange rind and a delicate though persistent finish. Paler still and so complex in the nose (strong toasted hazelnut smells) that it seems to be sweet when it is in fact dry is the Exito, Vergine Riserva 1982.

Pellegrino (founded 1880).The house of Pellegrino, officially Carlo Pellegrino & C., experienced great growth in the 1930s. It adapted to the difficult Marsala market of the 1980s by establishing a line of table wines. It is a big and dynamic family-owned operation. About 40 percent of the wines it releases are Marsala, an enormous commitment considering the market. The Marsala wines are labeled Cantine Pellegrino 1880. About one hundred of its three hundred hectares (247 of 741 acres) of vineyards are dedicated to Marsala production. The balance principally supplies its Duca di Castelmonte line of unfortified wines. The Riserva del Centenario 1980 that I tasted in 2010 was an exotic Vergine, amber-red, with smells of dried fruits, nuts, and cedar and a rich, full palate. The Superiore Riserva Grillo had a pure nutty, caramel taste. Pellegrino makes a dependable line of Superiores.

Other recommended producers and their wines:

Cantine Buffa Marsala Superiore Riserva Ora Dolce

Cantine Buffa Marsala Vergine

Cantine Intorcia Marsala Vergine Soleras

Cantine Rallo Marsala Soleras Vergine 20 anni

WESTERN SICILY

I have defined this wine zone so that it roughly corresponds to the one authorized to make Marsala. In the western coastal lowlands running from the town of Trapani to Sciacca, the climate is hot and arid, with winds blowing off the Mediterranean Sea. Along the coastline the breezes are cooling and provide humidity to the soil and vines. It is sunny for an average of 250 days a year here. During all but the winter months, there is very little rainfall along the coast. In many spots this plain is densely planted to vineyards. Woodhouse most likely sampled wines from the Birgi Vecchi and San Leonardo contradas along the coast just to the north of Marsala. He later sourced most of his grapes from the township of Petrosino, halfway between Marsala and Mazara del Vallo. Locals connect Petrosino's potential for great Grillo with its unusual subsoil, sciasciacu, in which marine fossils are embedded in calcareous detritus. In particular, the contrada Triglia Scaletta has a reputation for fine Grillo. The best soils for Grillo are loose, porous, and low in fertility, with a moist calcareous crust, rich in mineral salts, underneath. Coastal areas are also ideal for Grillo because it thrives in the sun and heat. The salt in the air and the subsoil gives Grillo wine a sapid taste. Many of the best vineyards along the coast have terra rossa topsoils. Patches of this red soil blanket the comunes of Castellammare del Golfo, Marsala, Petrosino, Mazara del Vallo, and Campobello di Mazara.

To the east the elevation of rolling hills increases steadily up to the highlands that extend from Mount Erice in the north to Castelvetrano, northwest of Menfi, in the south. Mount Erice, rising to 750 meters (2,461 feet), condenses much of the humidity borne on winds coming off the Tyrrhenian Sea. Its hillsides have the highest rainfall in Western Sicily. Lower elevations are very dry. Thankfully there is subterranean water available for irrigation. To the immediate northwest of the centrally located town of Salemi, vineyard altitudes range from four to six hundred meters (1,312 to 1,969 feet). In the vicinity of Salemi, the soil tends to be calcareous clay, rich in potassium but poor in nitrogen and available phosphorus. The deficiency of nitrogen and phosphorus slows growth, leading to low-alcohol wines. Interior hilly areas in the comunes of Buseto Palizzolo, Calatafimi, Fulgatore, Gibellina, and Partanna have similar soils. Clay soils become hard during dry spells and crack open. The surface they form needs to be constantly broken up. Easier to farm are the loose and fertile terre brune, "brown soils,” in the comunes of Balata di Baida, Buseto Palizzolo, Fulgatore, Poggioreale, and Salaparuta (not to be confused with the firm Duca di Salaparuta).2 At the higher elevations common in the interior hills, rainfall is higher and the clayey soils absorb water, making them cool and moist throughout the summer. In addition, winds rising up the hills release their moisture to vines as morning dew. The principal variety planted here is Catarratto, which produces a high-acid, moderate-to-low-alcohol wine. Chardonnay grown here has given good results. Fessina, an estate based at Rovittello on the north face of Etna, sources Chardonnay grapes from a vineyard it owns at Segesta, about twenty kilometers (twelve miles) north of Salemi. This vineyard faces northwest and is at six hundred meters (1,969 feet) on rocky, calcareous clay soil. The wine Nakone, one of the finest Chardonnays made in Sicily, matures on its lees for five or six months with no new-oak contact. Franco Giacosa sourced Inzolia from Salemi for the Duca di Salaparuta wines of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Duca di Salaparuta continues to source Inzolia from this area and has purchased an estate here, Risignolo, as a source for Kados, its 100 percent Grillo wine. The eastern edge of the Western Sicily zone is near the comunes of Poggioreale, Gibellina, and Salaparuta. These townships lie between the Freddo and Belice Rivers in the upper Belice Valley.

Catarratto Comune accounts for about 40 percent of the vines, of both red and white varieties, in the province of Trapani. The other white varieties, in order of most to least planted, are Grillo, Grecanico, Inzolia, Catarratto Lucido and Extralucido, Trebbiano Toscano, Chardonnay, Zibibbo, Pinot Grigio, Viognier, Damaschino, Malvasia Bianca, and Sauvignon Blanc. In the 1930s, Grillo occupied about 60 percent of the vineyards near the coastline. Now it is rare, particularly inland. Catarratto Extralucido is found more in the interior, particularly in the Alcamo area. Its high acidity results in a very tart white wine. The red varieties, from most to least planted, are Nero d'Avola (more than 7 percent of the vineyard area), Syrah, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Frappato, Nerello Mascalese, Petit Verdot, Alicante Bouschet, and Perricone. Most of the Nero d'Avola was planted in the 1990s. No one red variety has excelled in Western Sicily. Historically Perricone was the most important red variety in the zone, but it has become rare. Together with Carignan, also very rare, if existent at all, in Trapani now, it was the base of the red blend for vini da taglio, red wines, and rosatos.

There are several DOCs in this sizable zone. The operatic-sounding Delia Nivolelli is an appellation for various wine types using various vine varieties. Its basic rosso focuses on Nero d'Avola, Perricone, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Sangiovese. Its bianco has a more indigenous blend, featuring at least 65 percent Grecanico, Inzolia, and Grillo. Then there are varietal wines, which must meet the 85 percent variety minimum imposed by the DOC. The Delia Nivolelli DOC encompasses a large area, nearly surrounding the town of Marsala but not including it. In 2004 the Erice DOC superseded the Colli Ericini IGT. Some of this DOC's vineyard sites are on the slopes of Mount Erice close to the sea, but the appellation reaches well inland to the south, halfway down the island, overlapping the Delia Nivolelli DOC. In general, because of the high altitude of the vineyards in the appellation, between 250 and 500 meters (820 and 1,640 feet), Erice DOC wines tend to be lower in alcohol and higher in acidity than other western coastal wines. While Erice Bianco requires at least 60 percent Catarratto in its blend, Erice Rosso requires more than 60 percent Nero d'Avola. The DOC also features a wide range of indigenous and international varietal wines in a plethora of styles. The western edge of the Alcamo DOC creeps over the Freddo River. This appellation is described in the Palermo Highlands section below. The Salaparuta DOC lies in the upper Belice Valley at the eastern limit of the Western Sicily zone. At least 65 percent of its bianco must be Catarratto, while the same minimum of Nero d'Avola is prescribed for its rosso. Most of the wines in Western Sicily have been bottled and released to the market under the regionwide Sicilia IGT.

Tasca d'Almerita buys nearly all the grapes grown on Mozia, just north of Marsala in the lagoon along the coastline. This island is the site of an ancient Phoenician city and trading outpost. Shards of Phoenician pottery are so common in the vineyards that they make up part of the topsoil. The island is just offshore from Birgi Vecchi and San Leonardo. Tachis selected budwood from very old vines for these vineyards when they were replanted on rootstocks about a decade ago. Tasca d'Almerita buys its grapes from the Whitaker Foundation, which was established by Joseph Whitaker, a descendant of the nineteenth-century Marsala producer Ingham. The foundation administers the island and cares for its archeological treasures. Harvested grapes are loaded into small boats and transported to Sicily's shoreline. Trucks transfer them to Tasca's facility in Vallelunga for processing. The wine Mozia is 100 percent Grillo. It is light and soft with a salty finish. The vines need more age to produce more-concentrated wine. On the island of Favignana farther to the west, in the Egadì Islands, Firriato has a five hectare (twelve acre) experimental vineyard, in which it has planted Grillo, Catarratto, Perricone, and Nero d'Avola.

Across Western Sicily a high percentage of the grape crop is consigned to cooperatives. Along the west coast are the larger ones, particularly Colomba Bianca, Cantine Europa, and Cantina Sociale Birgi. Many retirees and elder professionals farm small plots of land and sell their grapes to cooperatives. The cooperatives principally sell juice and wine in bulk but are increasingly bottling it as they attempt to move away from the bulk market. Many of the other wine companies in the area are Marsala houses that have diversified into bottled unfortified wine. Merchant-owned and cooperative wineries have long dominated Western Sicily. Given the history of wine production and the great surface area dedicated to vineyards here, it is unfortunate that there are not more small and medium estate wine companies in the area to own vineyards, make wine, and commercialize it.

Barraco.Seven kilometers (four miles) from the sea in the township of Marsala, Nino Barraco makes fifteen thousand bottles of artisanal wine a year. One is a five-day skin contact Grillo white wine. Tasted at Vinitaly 2012, the 2010 smelled of almonds, hazelnuts, and diesel and had a salty tang in the finish. A thirteen-day skin contact dry Zibibbo was darker, with a strong floral and citrus nose and an astringent and bitter mouth. Barraco also makes a pale Pignatello (Perricone) that supports my experience throughout Sicily that there are at least two biotypes of Perricone used there: one for dark, astringent wines and another for paler, less-astringent ones. His best red wine was a 2010 Nero d'Avola. It was dark and had a strong bouquet of cherries, watermelon, and chocolate and a ripe, alcoholic, and astringent mouth. The 2006 Milocca is a passito Nero d'Avola. Its cedary cherry cough syrup nose leads into a sweet but astringent Port-like palate.

Caruso & Minini.Though the Caruso & Minini winery is in a renovated hundred-year-old baglio in the city of Marsala, its 120 hectares (297 acres) of vineyards are in a spot in the hills between Marsala and Salemi at about 350 meters (1,148 feet) in elevation. In 2004, Mario Minini combined his business expertise managing a winery in the north of Italy with Stefano Caruso's dream to give flavor to the grapes that his family had been growing and selling to merchants for more than one hundred years. Other Minini and Caruso family members help out. According to Stefano, the focus of the wines is purity of flavor. The texture of the 2011 Grillo Timpune that I tasted in April 2012 was round but tactile. It had fermented for ten days in five-hundred-liter (132-gallon) oak and acacia barrels and then been left on the lees. The 2011 Cusora, a Chardonnay and Viognier blend fermented in stainless steel, showed the success of those varieties in the rich, cool soils of the inland hills. It had tropical aromas and a soft body. With 13 percent alcohol, it was refreshing to drink. Typically Sicilian Chardonnay and Viognier wines have higher alcoholic content. Stefano Caruso is one of Perricone's most outspoken advocates. The variety has a long history in the Marsala-Salemi area. Growers used to call it Catarratto Rosso. Caruso ferments and matures it in stainless steel tanks to make Sachia. The 2009 vintage was deep reddish purple, with a mouth bursting with the smells of fresh cherries. A 2008 Syrah Riserva, Delia Nivolelli DOC, was opaque purple, with a balsamic nose and a round, soft mouth finished by lingering fine-textured astringency.

Marco De Bartoli.De Bartoli makes excellent Marsala-style wine and one of Sicily's best dry Grillo wines at the family farm, Samperi, outside the city of Marsala. The Grappolo del Grillo is barrel fermented, which gives it an aroma of grilled nuts. In 2010 De Bartoli told me that his 2008 “will be better in ten years.”

Fazio.Brothers Girolamo and Vincenzo Fazio asked Giacomo Ansaldi to help restructure what had been a cooperative winery. It now bears their family name. They brought Ansaldi on board as a partner and as the full-time enologist. He advised the brothers that the future of the industry would be tied to the English-speaking world. Hence the winery is officially named Fazio Wines. Vincenzo spearheaded efforts to register the Erice area, where the winery is located, as a DOC. The DOC began with the 2005 vintage. Most of the Fazio wines, however, are bottled under the Sicilia IGT designation. A Müller-Thurgau derived from grapes grown at 450 to 500 meters (1,476 to 1,640 feet) has garnered attention with a nose more scented with flowers and spices than German or Alsace examples. The alcohol level of 12.5 percent, lower than that of most other Sicilian wines, helps ensure its refreshing character. At the 2011 Vinitaly, Fazio introduced a sparkling version. My favorite varietal wine from Fazio is its Cabernet Sauvignon, which has the grape's dusty vegetal smells and characteristic fine astringency. The PietraSacra Nero d'Avola Erice DOC has tobacco scents and a fine astringent texture as well. The whites, always spicy, include two Inzolias, one bottled as an Erice DOC and the other as a Sicilia IGT, and Grillo and Catarratto Sicilia IGT wines.

Fina.Owner Bruno Fina worked as an IRVV enologist for ten years. This was during Tachis's consultancy. The two men developed a close working relationship. In 2005 Fina started a winery, Fina Vini, in the suburbs northeast of Marsala. His own vineyards supply 20 percent of the grapes he vinifies. His extensive knowledge of the terroirs of Western Sicily, combined with friendships and business contacts with many growers, enables him to carefully select the grapes he buys. The high quality of the fruit shows in the wine. He sources Fiano from high altitudes (four hundred meters [1,312 feet]) in the Contessa Entellina appellation near Menfi. The 2009 Fiano was very expressive, with lemon and peach scents. Its mouth is viscous yet tart. From the hills of the Calatifimi-Segesta area, Fina sources Viognier to make a spicy wine similar to the Fiano. When making Grillo, he blends the sea salt notes of grapes grown along the coast with the more aromatically fruited and sourer grapes from higher altitudes in the interior. Caro Maestro ("Dear Master"), a wine that he dedicates to Tachis, is a full-throttle blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Petit Verdot matured for two years in barrique and six months in bottle before release. The vintage that I tasted was opaque blue-black with mint and cinders in the nose. In the mouth, berry flavors enveloped a sheath of sourness and fine astringency. Fina's 2006 Syrah was one of the best Sicilian Syrahs that I have tasted. It was as dark as a moonless night. Slight smoke rose up with berry smells. The mouth was thick and wild with alcohol, bitterness, and astringency.

Firriato.Firriato has grown quickly since it was established in the mid-1980s, becoming one of the largest wine producers in Sicily, owning 320 hectares (790 acres) of vineyards and making more than five million bottles of wine annually. Besides holdings in Trapani, the winery owns eleven hectares (twenty-seven acres) of vineyards on Etna. During the late 1990s it quickly built up its northern European markets. During this rapid growth phase, the owners Salvatore and Vinzia Novara Di Gaetano hired Australian and New Zealand enologists. Their wines began to display an international style. The wines have been driven by concepts rather than place of origin, though the Etna wines prove they can do otherwise, and their Favignana project could also yield place-specific results. Lately the company has turned to the Tuscan consulting enologist Stefano Chioccioli. Harmonium Nero d'Avola is deep purple-black, with burned oak and blackberry fruit, and is extremely soft and thick in the mouth. Camelot, a Cabernet Sauvignon-Merlot blend, has more astringency than the Harmonium. This gives it more structure. The Firriato winery is in Paceco just east of the city of Trapani, but it purchases its grapes from throughout Sicily.

Fondo Antico.Giuseppe Agostino Adragna, a personable commercial manager, and Lorenza Scianna, a young enologist who combines technical skill, enthusiasm, and energy, breathe professionalism and excitement into the Polizzotti family's winery, Fondo Antico. Sensing the shift from international to indigenous varieties, the company discontinued its international wines except for Syrah. Fondo Antico's calling card is Grillo, particularly its Grillo Parlante (50 percent of production, 150,000 bottles per year). Although the winery is in Birgi, a coastal area, its vineyard elevation ranges from fifty meters (164 feet) near the coast to 250 (820 feet) meters on inland hills. Grillo Parlante tastes fresh and lively without giving up the sapidity that characterizes coastal Grillo. Il Coro Grillo has the tactile edge of wood contact without an oak scent because the barrels used are made of acacia wood. Fondo Antico's Nero d'Avola comes from cool clay soils. The resulting red and rosato (Aprile) wines are fresh and lively. Unforgettable is a 2007 Memorie Clairette, made by pressing fresh Nero d'Avola grapes and fermenting the red-tinted must in barrique. It was both delicate and complex.

Gorghi Tondi.The Sicilian wine industry has been a man's world until the past twenty years. Two sisters, Annamaria and Clara Sala, manage the Tenuta Gorghi Tondi estate for their family. The company's thirty-five hectares (eighty-six acres) of vines, all in contrada San Nicola in Mazara del Vallo, are divided into vineyards that run up to the Mediterranean and several that lie adjacent to small saltwater lakes in a World Wildlife Fund nature reserve. Grillo dominates the varieties planted seaside in red sandy soils. Nero d'Avola and Chardonnay, two varieties strongly associated with calcium carbonate, are planted in vineyards that abut the lakes, which are karstic (that is, connected to one another and to the Mediterranean by underground streams and caverns set in limestone). At the 2012 Vinitaly, I tasted a citrusy-salty Grillo wine, the 2011 Kheirè, from the sandy-clay soils. The 2011 Rajàh, a dry Zibibbo, was more aromatic, with rich grapefruit and orange smells, and was also saline. The estate also makes a Chardonnay and a Nero d'Avola from the high–calcium carbonate, silt-dominant soils by the lakes. There is a one hectare (two and a half acre) Grillo vineyard planted next to one of the lakes in a spot protected from the offshore winds. Here the Botrytis cinerea fungus gradually attacks the overmature Grillo. Due to unusual local climatic conditions, this fungus, which most of the time destroys grape quality, here enhances it. The result is Grillo D'Oro Passito, Sicily's finest botrytis wine. There aren't many like it, due to the island's dry, windy climate. The 2008 had a nose of dried fig, caramel, and ripe grapefruit and was characteristically viscous in the mouth.

La Divina.At La Divina, a boutique winery in a renovated Florio baglio in view of the island of Mozia, Giacomo Ansaldi makes two dry wines—a white, Abbadessa, a blend of Grillo and Zibibbo, and Cipponeri, a blend of Nero d'Avola and Perricone. Both are ripe and extracted in style. The Abbadessa is deep golden yellow, with strong orange and tropical fruit smells, and viscous with a savory bitter edge. The Cipponeri is deep in color and has a lusty red fruit nose and a thick, rustic mouthful of textures. Ansaldi also makes one sweet, late-harvest wine, Aruta. It is amber and made from dried Zibbibo grapes vinified and aged in oak. All three wines are in very limited production and only available at his relais-restaurant, Donna Franca.

La Terzavia.Renato De Bartoli, Marco's son, has been developing his own brand, La Terzavia. He vinifies the wines at Samperi, the family estate southeast of Marsala, using Grillo from the hills there to make a nondosage metodo classico sparkling wine.

Other recommended producers and their wines:

Cantine Rallo Aquamadre

Cantine Rallo Bianco Maggiore

Cantine Rallo Perla Dell'Eremo Müller Thurgau

Duca di Salaparuta Bianca di Valguarnera

Duca di Salaparuta Calanica Inzolia-Chardonnay

Duca di Salaparuta Kados

VAL DI MAZARA—EAST

PALERMO HIGHLANDS

The Palermo Highlands had two periods of promising developments in its local wine industry. In the late eighteenth century, King Ferdinand III of Sicily from his throne in Naples sent the agricultural specialist Felice Lioy to help improve the production of wheat, oil, wine, and other products. Lioy visited farms in the towns around Palermo. He observed agricultural practices and offered advice to farmers. Unfortunately, his counsel was met with indifference and resentment. In 1799, with Napoleon Bonaparte threatening Naples, Ferdinand fled to Palermo. The following year, the Real Cantina Borbonica ("Royal Bourbon Winery") was built in the town of Partinico southwest of Palermo. It had a sophisticated design that allowed horse-drawn carts to drive up ramps and deliver their baskets of grapes at the top of stone vats. Once the grapes were unloaded into the vats, workers crushed them. While the fermenting must was still warm, it was drained into casks and regularly refilled with must that had been set aside. Today this process is called topping-up. Lioy was the enological force behind these innovations. In 1802, Giovanni Meli described closed fermentation tanks in use in Bagheria by the Prince of Butera and in Misilmeri by the Prince Cattolica, but this practice seems not to have spread.3 With Ferdinand's final return to Naples in 1815 and his death in 1825, the Real Cantina Borbonica fell into disuse. The local wine industry returned to its pre-Lioy practices.

MAP 3.

Val di Mazara—East

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the hills to the southwest, south, and southeast of Palermo became the site of a nascent high-quality wine industry. A fertile plain called the Conca d'Oro ("Golden Shell") rings the city. The Conca d'Oro is about one hundred square kilometers (thirty-nine square miles) and lies between the mountains that encircle Palermo and the Tyrrhenian Sea off Sicily's north coast. Since the time of the Norman kings, the Conca d'Oro has been celebrated for its luxuriant gardens and citrus groves. It is where the wealthy noble families of Palermo built their lavish country villas and gardens in the nineteenth century. These families typically garnered an income from large agricultural holdings in various other parts of Sicily. They spent most of their time and money on the pleasures and pursuits of life in and around Palermo, returning to check on the operation of their rural farms perhaps a few times per year, or perhaps never at all.

Among the handful of serious winegrowing families here were some who sought to re-create the lighter, fresher, and cleaner wines from Europe. The hills surrounding Palermo harbored promising sites to achieve these styles. French technicians worked in the cellars of Edoardo Alliata's Casteldaccia winery southeast of Palermo and in those of Henri d'Orleans at Zucco just north of where the Real Cantina Borbonica had been in operation. The wines of Alliata and d'Orleans were highly praised and exported widely. Other producers invested in new French winemaking equipment and achieved similar results. They had more success with white wine production than red. During the nineteenth century much of this wine was consumed in Palermo and its environs. Yet again, this period of enological growth almost evaporated later, at the beginning of the twentieth century.

During the twentieth century, land costs and Palermo urban sprawl pushed quality wine production well outside the city and its suburbs. Moving west and south of Palermo, among scattered mountains there are areas with elevations between 200 and 850 meters (656 and 2,789 feet) that are well suited for viticulture. In 1901 the Tasca family won an award with their wine Camastra, made at the Villa Camastra on the southwestern edge of the Conca d'Oro. Production of this wine was quite limited and was eventually discontinued in 1922. While the Tascas’ Regaleali estate in the center of Sicily was making wine well enough by 1871 to win an award at a Sicilian wine competition, it was not until the late 1950s that Giuseppe Tasca d'Almerita and his wife Franca Cammarata began to modernize the vineyards and winery there. In the wake of the destruction caused by the Belice earthquake of 1968, in the early 1970s the Guarrasis of Rapitalà and the Spadaforas rebuilt their families’ winemaking facilities. These sites were where younger generations of motivated family members embraced the challenge of quality wine production. Francesco Spadafora exemplifies this transition. Despite owning a sizable estate of ninety-five hectares (235 acres), he, in the tradition of a French vigneron, personally oversees the production of his wine from the vineyards to the cantina.

Besides the blue bloods of Palermo there were also “red bloods,” entrepreneurial families that followed in the wake of the nobles, themselves becoming notable wine producers in the Palermo Highlands. An example is the Cusumano family. The youngest generation of Cusumanos, the brothers Alberto and Diego, has developed a state-of-the-art winery on the shoulders of the family bulk wine operation, Cadivin, on the southern side of the Palermo Highlands near Partinico. It sources grapes not only from growers throughout the island but also from its four hundred hectares (988 acres). Calatrasi is another powerhouse, developed by the brothers Maurizio and Giuseppe Micciche in 1980. In 1992 Maurizio built the family grape and wine business to new heights by purchasing two hundred hectares (494 acres) of land at six hundred meters (1,969 feet) in elevation near Corleone. In 1998 he entered into a joint venture with BRL Hardy. Calatrasi formed a joint venture with a Tunisian winery in 2000, purchased vineyards in Apulia, and then in 2010 formed Calatrasi Mediterranean Domains by assembling a diverse group of international strategic partners.

In other cases, family members with an agricultural background have pooled their labor, vineyards, and financial resources to create estates with a boutique profile. One example is the three brothers who joined together to create Alessandro di Camporeale in the town of Camporeale. Brothers Vincenzo, Giuseppe, and Antonio Melia collaborated to build the Ceuso estate between Alcamo and Segesta. It is rare in Sicily, though, to find a group of unrelated Sicilians who have each contributed capital to form a joint stock company. One such anomaly is the Feotto dello Jato estate near the town of San Giuseppe Jato southwest of Palermo. It has seven investors.

In Sicilian, foreign can mean “from mainland Italy.” There have been few such people in the Palermo Highlands. Most notable is the Venetian investor Paolo Marzotto, who in 1997 purchased Baglio di Pianetto due south of Palermo. Cooperatives are also few in number compared to the many in western and southwestern Sicily. The Cantina dell'Alto Belice, with its eight thousand members and 160,000 hectares (395,369 acres), is one of the largest. The Palermo Highlands are characterized by isolation. It takes usually an hour or so to drive from one producer to the next. Besides the numerous other difficulties facing Sicilians during the first half of the twentieth century, one wonders how much the strong grip of the Mafia on this area may have stifled the development of free commerce. One winery with an unusual profile is another cooperative, Libera Terra Mediterraneo, with its brand Centopassi. It was born using land confiscated from the Mafia south of San Giuseppe Jato. It is a symbol of defiance to the Mafia.

The hills south of Palermo get more than average rainfall for Sicily, nearly all of it falling from September to May. In the interior, winds vary according to topography. Elevations of up to seven hundred meters (2,297 feet) combined with northern exposures predispose some areas, such as Ficuzza, to white wine grapes and vines with short gestation periods, such as Pinot Noir and Merlot. Other areas, such as Alcamo, Camporeale, and San Giuseppe Jato, have recently had good results with red wines, particularly Syrah. The soils are clay dominant, although the tops of slopes tend to be sandier. Some soils are calcareous, as in the Piana degli Albanesi. Others, such as those at Ficuzza, are slightly acidic, due perhaps to higher levels of precipitation.

Inzolia and Catarratto are the traditional white varieties. Catarratto in particular has long been associated with the townships of Alcamo and Camporeale. Until the mid-1980s, these townships supplied Marsala with base wines for Marsala production. They also made copious amounts of nonaromatic and low-alcohol wines, which were shipped by rail, boat, or truck either west to Marsala or east to Messina and thence to Reggio Calabria and the rest of Italy. The Vermouth industry was the destination for much of this wine. This business was particularly brisk during the 1950s and 1960s. From about 2005, Grillo has been increasingly planted for white wines. In the nineteenth century, Perricone was the most important red variety. During the twentieth century, Nero d'Avola replaced it, though Perricone remained in use as a blender to add color and texture to Nero d'Avola wine. International varieties were introduced in the Palermo Highlands at Zucco and La Contessa in the nineteenth century, but they were discontinued during the early-twentieth-century devolution of the Sicilian wine industry. During the 1980s, Hugues Bernard, the French husband of Gigi Guarrasi, introduced French varieties at Rapitalà, and estates such as Disisa set up experimental plantings of many international varieties in collaboration with the IRVV. In the 1990s, the IRVV's experimental station at Virzi near Camporeale became the experiment center and command post for viticultural and enological innovation. From there emanated the spirit that once again revitalized the Sicilian quality wine industry.

There are two DOCs in the Palermo Highlands, Alcamo and Monreale. The northeastern slice of the Marsala DOC overlaps the Alcamo DOC (but not the township of Alcamo). The Alcamo and Monreale DOCs also overlap. The western half of the Alcamo DOC is home to the dark black soils formerly considered ideal for white wines but not reds. The Melia brothers at Ceuso have disproved that assumption with their strong, powerful reds. Until 1999, Alcamo was a DOC reserved for white wine only. Simply called Alcamo white, it had to contain at least 80 percent Catarratto of the Comune or Lucido types. A modification to Alcamo DOC wine law in September 1999 dropped the varietal minimum to 40 percent and added a Classico (at least 80 percent Catarratto) designation. It also added Rosso based on at least 60 percent Nero d'Avola supplemented by other red varieties. The Rosso Riserva category required two years of maturation before market release. Varietal Alcamo DOCs were allowed, as were Spumante ("Sparkling"), Novello ("Early Release"), and Vendemmia Tardiva ("Late Harvest").

The eastern half of the Alcamo DOC is the western one-third of the Monreale DOC. Producers in this overlap can choose either appellation, provided that their wines meet the legal production requirements. Like their counterparts elsewhere in Sicily, most simply use the Sicilia IGT designation. Since about 2000, Alcamo in particular has become known as the source of some of Sicily's most successful Syrah wines. These come mostly from the area around the town of Camporeale (also in the Monreale DOC). Giuseppe Tasca of Tasca d'Almerita believes that the reason for Camporeale's success with this variety is that at harvest time there is the right amount of heat and very little chance of precipitation. The 2008 Sallier de la Tour La Monaca Syrah that I tasted at Vinitaly 2011 combined the complexity of cool-climate Syrahs with the body of warm-climate ones. Tasca d'Almerita manages the vineyards of Sallier de la Tour and harvests and transports the grapes to Regaleali for vinification.

The Monreale DOC takes its name from the town of Monreale just outside Palermo, which is famous for its cathedral containing strikingly beautiful mosaics from the Norman period. The international fame of the cathedral should provide promotional support to the DOC, though no vineyards are near it. Most of the dozen or so wine estates in the Monreale DOC are clustered around the towns of San Giuseppe Jato and Camporeale. San Giuseppe Jato is about thirty kilometers (nineteen miles) from Monreale and the Palermo city limits. Camporeale is farther away. Monreale Bianco must have a minimum of 50 percent Catarratto and Inzolia; Monreale Rosso, a minimum of 50 percent Nero d'Avola and Perricone. There are also Rosato, Vendemmia Tardiva, Rosso Riserva, and Bianco Superiore typologies (the last requires more than 12.5 percent alcohol and more than six months of maturation before release). Monreale varietal wines, white and red, are also allowed for a wide range of varieties. Monreale does, however, uniquely include the possibility of a Perricone DOC. Just as the Monreale DOC has staked its territorial claim to the Cathedral of Monreale, it has staked a varietal claim to Perricone. The Tamburello winery has made a strong, sustained effort to associate itself and Monreale with Perricone. Its Pietragavina Perricone is identified as 100 percent Perricone and bottled as a Monreale DOC wine. Feotto della Jato makes a single-vineyard Perricone, Vigna Curria, under the Sicilia IGT denomination.

Alessandro di Camporeale.The brothers Rosolino, Antonino, and Natale Alessandro are known for their high-powered Syrah wine, named Kaid. The ones I sampled were dark, thick with ripe smells, heavy, and richly textured. In addition to the normal Kaid, there is a Vendemmia Tardiva Kaid, which adds lust to power in the form of residual sweetness. A Sauvignon Blanc has few of the vegetal tones typical of the variety. Vincenzo Bambina, the company's consulting enologist, explained the reason. “This,” he says, “is a real Sicilian Sauvignon Blanc, one that expresses the intense light of Sicily.” The company is integrating acacia wood staves with oak ones in the composition of its barrels.

Baglio di Pianetto.A former chairman of the board of the group that owned the Santa Margherita brand and the scion of a family that made a fortune in the textile industry, Paolo Marzotto brings business savvy to a wine project that is more than just idle play. Despite his seventy-plus years he races around as if he were a young entrepreneur in search of his first business success. His granddaughter Ginevra Notarbartolo, however, is increasingly visible. Baglio di Pianetto's high-elevation site, at 650 meters (2,133 feet), is planted to Inzolia, Viognier, Merlot, Nero d'Avola, and Petit Verdot. The wine Ficiligno blends the aroma of Viognier with the structure of Inzolia. A varietal Viognier, Ginolfo, subtly shows the grape's floral smells in the context of modest oak nuances and body. The company's most outstanding and most underrated wine is the Merlot Salici, which unites woodsy and earthy nuances with a tart, rich mouthful. For those who like red wines with thick, bristling tannins, the Carduni Petit Verdot will satisfy. Marzotto's preference is to match savory with savory. Accordingly he recommends serving the Carduni with dark chocolate or aged wild game.

Brugnano.To vinify their grapes from family and rented vineyards near the coastline at the northwestern Gulf of Castellammare, the brothers Francesco and Salvatore Brugnano have enlisted the help of Vincenzo Bambina and Nicola Centonze. The hand of these two talented consulting enologists is evident in the elegance of Brugnano's wines. My favorites are the V90 Vinovanta Catarratto, Lunario Nero d'Avola, and Naisi, a 75 percent Nero d'Avola-25 percent Tannat blend. The Nero d'Avola provides the cherry fruit; the Tannat, woodsy spices and a long astringent finish.

Ceuso.Ceuso is the epitome of a family collaboration. Antonino Melia works the fifty hectares (124 acres) of vineyards. His brother Vincenzo, who recently retired from his position as the manager and coordinator of the IRVV research winery in Marsala, is the viticultural specialist. Giuseppe, another brother, is the on-site enologist. Their brother-in-law Francesco Vallone handles the books. Vincenzo worked closely with Tachis, who became his mentor and friend, from 1995 to 2007, during Tachis's consultancy for the IRVV. One can see his impact not only in the style of the wines, which are blends of indigenous and international varieties, but also in the outfitting of the winery, which reminded me of the winery of Tachis's most famous client in Tuscany, Tenuta San Guido. Though Sicily was known for white wines, Tachis believed that its potential for red wines was even greater. Indeed, the Melia brothers have transformed an area known for Alcamo white into one that makes sculpted, powerful red wine blends. You can taste the power of the fertile black soil of Alcamo in their wines. Ceuso bottles have only proprietary labeling. After the lightweight and good-value Scurati white and red Sicilia IGT, the wines become dark, rich, and densely textured. Fastaia is a Bordeaux blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Petit Verdot. The Petit Verdot adds some balsam in the nose and astringency in the mouth. The calling-card château wine, Ceuso, is 50 percent Nero d'Avola, 30 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, and 20 percent Merlot. It is richer and riper than the Fastaia. Ceuso Custera is a single-vineyard wine released with bottle age. The 1999 that I tasted in July 2010 had the red-orange rim of a mature wine and a dense nose of cinder, licorice, and celery. Ceuso red wines are usually big in the mouth. The bottle age of the 1999 Custera had made its palate more delicate.

Disisa.The Di Lorenzo family has owned this estate since 1860. Its vineyards are at four to five hundred meters (1,312 to 1,640 feet) on clay soil in the Belice and Jato River Valleys in the Monreale DOC. From 1800 to 1850 the land had a special authorization to make wine. A winery was constructed during the 1930s and vineyard surface was increased. White bulk wines made from Catarratto, Inzolia, and Grillo were produced. During the 1970s, the bulk wine market deteriorated. Disisa's owners, inspired by the international varieties that they had planted in collaboration with the IRVV, set the estate on a path of focusing on their commercial use. As of 2009, however, it began replanting its vineyards of international varieties with indigenous ones. The red wines have more-focused flavors than the whites. In particular, a 2008 Tornamira, a blend of 50 percent Syrah, 25 percent Merlot, and 25 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, had a bell pepper-scented nose and a long, fine, astringent finish. The Vuaria Monreale DOC, a 100 percent Nero d'Avola from the same vintage, had its tart edges rounded off by barrique.

Duca di Salaparuta.The pioneering wine producer Duca di Salaparuta was sold in 1961 to Ente Siciliano per la Promozione Industriale (ESPI) and again in 2001 to ILLVA di Saronno, a northern Italian drinks company, the producer of Disaronno Originale. In 2003, ILLVA named its Sicilian group Duca di Salaparuta and placed the brands Duca di Salaparuta, Corvo, and Florio under it. The discussion here concerns itself with the first two. For much of the modern era the Duca di Salaparuta branch has been in talented enological hands. From 1968 to 1997 they were Giacosa's. In 1998, Angelo Paternò replaced Giacosa as technical director, then served until June 2001. From the 2001 harvest to May 2008, Carlo Casavecchia took over. Stefano Salvini filled the position until leaving it in mid-2012. From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s and from 1991 to 1997, Ezio Rivella of Enoconsult had a consulting role. Tachis was a consulting enologist from 1996 to 2006. Casavecchia played a major role in important acquisitions to ensure that the highest-quality vineyard sources would be available to Duca di Salaparuta. In 2003 the company purchased two holdings: Suor Marchesa, in the same area in the comune of Butera where Giacosa had sourced the heart of Sicily's first varietal Nero d'Avola (Duca Enrico), and Vajasindi, on the north face of Etna in the township of Passopisciaro. Later it purchased an estate, Risignolo, in Salemi. Duca di Salaparuta sources grapes for its largest brand, Corvo (in red and white), from all over the island. It generally makes its prestige wines with grapes from outside the Palermo Highlands. The historical premises at Casteldaccia, fifteen kilometers (nine miles) east of Palermo, house the managing headquarters, a maturation cellar, and a wine museum. The company has s modern vinification facility in the seaside village of Aspra, just outside Bagheria.

Fatascià.The owners of Fatascià are Stefania Lena and her husband, Giuseppe Natoli. Their lives were shattered when the indictment of Lena's father forced them to leave Abbazia Santa Anastasia. She had been the enologist at that estate near Cefalù, where she had worked with Tachis and the Umbrian consulting enologist Riccardo Cotarella. At the time of the indictment, her father's plan had been to unite Abbazia Santa Anastasia and Fatascià, which he owned then. After leaving Abbazia, Lena focused her attention on Fatascià, as did her husband and older brother, responsible for sales and marketing. The estate owns thirty hectares (seventy-four acres) in the townships of San Giuseppe Jato, San Cipirello, and Contessa Entellina. At the 2012 Vinitaly, the banana nose of the 2011 Grillo varietal wine indicated its youth. In the mouth it was round and salty. Lena had us guessing about the varietal mix of the 2011 Enigma. She gave us a hint: 90 percent of it was Grillo. The wine was too aromatic and bitter for a 100 percent Grillo. Fran got it right when she selected Zibibbo as the other 10 percent. Lena's 2007 Rosso del Presidente, a Cabernet Franc–Nero d'Avola blend, was more refreshing and had finer astringency than the 2010 Aliré, a blend of Syrah and Nero d'Avola. While Fran and I were tasting these wines, several people in the Sicilian wine industry came to Lena's booth to enter into friendly conversation with her. They offered support and encouragement for her efforts.

Porta del Vento.Porta del Vento is the brand of a winery named for its proprietor, Marco Sferlazzo. He makes the wines with his own hands on his ten hectare (twenty-five acre) estate at six hundred meters (1,969 feet) in the contrada of Valdibella at Camporeale. The soil is rocky with a sandy subsoil. Sferlazzo focuses on the two most distinctive varieties native to the area, Catarratto, exclusively its Lucido and Extralucido biotypes, and Perricone. He also has Nero d'Avola. At Vinitaly 2012, I sampled a vertical tasting of his Catarratto wines. The 2010 was pale amber and had a nose of green tea. The 2009 showed the difficulty of this rainy vintage and the vulnerability of low-sulfite winemaking. It was darker amber with some oxidized apple smells. The 2008, however, came back on the path taken by the 2010. It smelled of quince and nuts and was very sour. The 2007 was paler but nuttier than its older brother. I tasted a 2010 Maquè rosato made with Perricone. It smelled of ripe plums and was very tart and unusually bitter and astringent. A 2010 Maquè Perricone had flesh to balance its astringency. It was one of the best Perricones that I have ever tasted. It is a no-sulfite-added wine fermented on its skins for thirty days. Sferlazzo's 2010 Ishac, a Nero d'Avola, was a deep purple and expressed perfectly ripe fruit. The finish buzzed with acidity and fine astringency.

Rapitalà.Tenute Rapitalà is a wine estate in the comune of Camporeale with 160 hectares (395 acres) of vineyards at a site whose elevations range from three to six hundred meters (984 to 1,969 feet). Clay is at the bottom and sand is at the top. The harvest lasts twenty days from bottom to top. Rapitalà is a translation of Rabidh-Allah, which means “River of Allah.” The Guarrasis, an old Alcamo family that resided in Palermo, made and sold bulk wine from the grapes on this estate, mostly the locally dominant Catarratto variety, before the 1968 Belice earthquake destroyed the farm buildings. Also in that year, Gigi Guarrasi married Hugues Bernard, a naval officer at the time but also the son of a winemaker. Bernard spearheaded the rebuilding of the winery with the aim of making a French-style Sicilian wine. In the mid-1980s he planted Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc and purchased French barriques. Later in that decade he planted Pinot Noir and Syrah. In 1998 he formed a partnership with Italy's largest winery group, Gruppo Italiano Vini (GIV). GIV has the major share. Bernard died in 2006. Today Laurent Bernard, his son, is the company's president and brand manager. He is a self-proclaimed “engineer-psychologist” with an understanding of every detail of the property and how to manage its forty-odd employees. At his right hand is the winemaker Silvio Centonze, who has worked at Rapitalà since 1990. The predilection of the site for white grapes and the skill of Centonze show brilliantly in Rapitalà white wines: the Fleur Grillo, from recently planted Grillo vines; Piano Maltese, 45 percent Grillo, 45 percent Catarratto, 10 percent balance of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc; and Casalj, 70 percent high-elevation (up to six hundred meters [1,969 feet]) Catarratto blended with 30 percent Chardonnay. In April 2012, I had a vertical tasting of Chardonnays branded Grand Cru, from the 2007, 2006, and 2005 vintages. The 2007 harvest was small due to a downy mildew infection, but the remaining crop was ripe and concentrated. The wine was tight, powerful, and had many years left in it. The 2006, from a year too warm for lively white wine, showed just that. It was rich but lacked length in the mouth. The 2005 was the deepest gold and had the mushroom nose of mature Champagne. Though the 2007 had more promise, the 2005 was ready to drink and delicious. The 2010, which I did not taste, was the twentieth vintage of Chardonnay for the estate. Rapitalà's red wines, though fine for Sicily, could be better. Of them, I prefer the honest and direct midslope Campo Reale Nero d'Avola; a more refined Nero d'Avola from higher up the slope, Alto Nero d'Avola; an even higher-elevation Nero d'Avola, Solinero, which gains body from a dose of lower-elevation Nero d'Avola; and a medium-to-high-elevation Syrah named Nadir. When I visited Rapitalà, I saw Laurent Bernard gazing over the slope of the vineyards, his eyes gleaming. I imagined that he could hear distinct flavors oozing from the elevations as if they were the notes of a musical scale.

Spadafora.Owner Francesco Spadafora fondly remembers his visits as a boy to his family farm in Virzi, a neighborhood of the town of Camporeale. His father, Pietro, a friend of Diego Planeta, offered to let the IRVV use his winery for its experimental vinifications. The IRVV was there from 1990 to 2000. Spadafora recalls his excitement at being in the crucible of the transformation of the Sicilian wine industry. “Here wine changed,” he declared. The experience added intellectual structure to his attachment to the place and fondness for agricultural life. By the late 1980s Spadafora found himself devoting his time to the vineyards at Virzi. He started the wine estate in 1988 when his father gave him the land. He has ninety-five hectares (235 acres) of vineyards at 250 meters (820 feet) with sand-dominant soil. Though he helped to establish the Monreale DOC with Mirella Tamburello, he bottles all his wines under the Sicilia IGT. Spadafora brings the passion and energy of a small winegrower to his banner wine, the 100 percent Syrah Sicilia IGT Sole dei Padri. His other notable wines are Schietto Grillo and Schietto Cabernet Sauvignon, both Sicilia IGT. The Don Pietro red and white Sicilia IGT blends are consistently satisfying.

Other recommended producers and their wines:

Cossentino Lioy Rosso

Guccione Gibril Nerello Mascalese

Guccione Perpetuo di Cerasa

Guccione Rosso di Cerasa

TERRE SICANE

The viticultural area between the Belice and Platani Rivers is focused on the Belice, which has its source in the mountains of San Giuseppe Jato south of Palermo and moves south-southwest to empty into the Mediterranean just west of the town of Menfi. The official wine road, Terre Sicane (in full, Strada del Vino Terre Sicane), covers nearly all of the Belice-Platani area. Beyond this to the southeast, the Duca di Salaparuta winery sources Inzolia from the townships Ribera and Cattolica Eraclea for its Colomba Platino wine.

Though historians celebrated this area as producing some of the finest wines in the classical age, in subsequent periods grapes became a secondary crop and wine production a tertiary industry until the post–World War II period, when Marsala merchants scavenging for cheaper and cheaper raw material invaded. With the market for wheat and meat from livestock diminishing due to international competition, grapes looked promising. Just as the bulk wine market began falling away in the late 1970s, the Sette-soli cooperative grew to fill the void. Another needed boost was Donnafugata, which, after its creation in 1983, renovated the family vineyards and built its principal winery at Contessa Entellina. The arrival of a family with such enormous marketing talent has helped move the image of the entire area in a positive direction. Then came the meteoric ascent of the Planeta winery during the 1990s. This set the stage for the creation of smaller, family-run estates during the 1990s. To get better grapes, winegrowers cut yields by as much as 75 percent. Wineries were fitted with stainless steel tanks equipped for temperature control. Settesoli and Planeta were quick to implement the results of successful IRVV experiments. Both companies had the enological guidance of Carlo Corino, fresh from his work in Australia. Tachis had been with Donnafugata since the early 1990s, right after his consultancy for the IRVV began. According to Alessio Planeta, “Menfi is the laboratory where the new wines of Sicily began.” Terre Sicane is the New World of the Sicilian wine industry.

During the post-World War II bulk wine market boom, the Terre Sicane area was fertile ground for the cooperative movement. In 1958 the largest and most dynamic cooperative, Settesoli, was created. Today it has 1,841 farmer-members with six thousand hectares (14,826 acres) of vineyards. Two other large cooperatives are Cellaro in Sambuca, founded in 1969, and Corbera in Santa Margherita Belice, founded in 1971.

There has been a modest development of family-owned wineries in Terre Sicane. For the most part these families supplied grapes to Marsala merchants and local cooperatives following World War II. With Planeta, which was a member of Settesoli before and after its first release, as their local success story and emboldened by the 1995 to 2001 Sicilian wine boom and the added stimulus of EU financial assistance, about a dozen families decided to make, bottle, and sell their own wine. Pietro Barbera was one of the founding farmers of Settesoli. He made his own wine in 1995 and 1996, but his winery, Cantine Barbera, got off the ground with the construction of a state-of-the art winery in 2000. The Di Prima family in Sambuca had similarly grown and sold grapes before it started bottling in 1999. Agareno was founded as a collaboration of eight farmer families. Feudo Arancio's owners come from farther afield. In 2002, Gruppo Mezzacorona, the well-respected cooperative from Trentino–Alto Adige, built the winery for its Sicilian brand, Feudo Arancio. Today it is the largest private landholder of vineyards in Sicily, with six hundred hectares (1,483 acres) shared between Sambuca in the province of Agrigento and Acate in the province of Ragusa. Young Italians, mostly Sicilians, run the pristinely clean winery that looks down on Lake Arancio and the town of Sambuca. In the mid-1990s the Miceli company, created during the 1970s by the Palermo wine entrepreneur Ignazio Miceli to promote and distribute the wines of leading Sicilian estates, planted thirty-five hectares (eighty-six acres) of Viognier, Chardonnay, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Tannat in the vicinity of Selinunte along the coastline to the west of Menfi on the advice of Attilio Scienza. After the death of Ignazio, his cousin Pippo Lo Re and a partner, Gianni Tartaglia, took over the estate. It is now sixty hectares (148 acres) and produces more than one million bottles annually from its own and purchased grapes. The winery uses both international and native varieties. Miceli also rents a cooperative winery space between Menfi and Sciacca and has an outpost on Pantelleria.

The climate in Terre Sicane is hot and arid, though there are some cooling breezes that affect coastline areas. Wine producers elsewhere in Sicily refer to the harvest period of Menfi as being the earliest on the island. Because harvests come in at warm temperatures, wine acidities tend to be lower than at most other locations in Sicily. Donnafugata and Feudo Arancio have both introduced night harvesting to reduce the temperature of harvested grapes and offset this problem. The winds, particularly the scirocco, can be strong enough to break young shoots. Dry, hot, and windy conditions lower disease pressure, making organic and biodynamic viticulture more viable. Sustainable viticulture is a phrase in vogue in the Menfi area. Unfortunately water is scarce. One sees no alberello training here, proof that its viticulture boom happened after World War II.

The soils are on marine terraces of sedimentary origin. Underneath the topsoils are marl deposits. Soil color varies from dark to reddish to yellowish brown. While at lower elevations the soils are mixes of clays, silts, and sands, higher elevations also have sandstone and some rocky areas. There are fluvial patches of rounded stones near the Belice River. The soil is generally calcareous. Though they show great potential to make quality wine, intensive farming over a long period has left some soils so depleted that it will be difficult to restore them. Settesoli has vineyards on the coastline that go as high as 350 meters (1,148 feet). There is a high range of hills dividing Menfi from Sambuca. Di Prima has a vineyard there, Pepita, at five hundred meters (1,640 feet). Donnafugata's Contessa Entellina vineyards, farther inland between Sambuca and Corleone, range in altitude from 250 to 550 meters (820 to 1,804 feet).

Before the 1980s, 90 percent of the vines planted were white varieties, mostly Catarratto, Trebbiano, and Inzolia. Since the 1980s, producers have ripped out much of the Trebbiano because the bulk market, for which it was planted, has been deteriorating. As a foreign grape that makes low-aroma, lightweight wines, it has no future in Sicilian quality white wines. Nero d'Avola has dominated the red varieties, but its performance here has not identified it as a superstar. It makes basic wine, on the vegetal side. Since the 1970s, Settesoli has been a major force in determining the varieties selected for new plantings. The cooperative's policy has been to tell its farmer-members what varieties to plant based on its analysis of market demand. During the 1980s and 1990s, Settesoli told its growers to plant the international varieties Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Syrah and paid them more to do so. Despite the success of Planeta's Chardonnay, the climate is too hot and dry for this variety. Viognier came later, is better suited to the Menfi area, and has been quite successful, particularly for Settesoli, which pioneered the development of the variety. Planeta has championed Grecanico. While Planeta's Cometa Fiano has received critical acclaim, it is a small production. However, Settesoli grows 70 percent of the Fiano in Sicily. While Fiano was brought from Campania for the IRVV-IASMA (Istituto Agrario di San Michele all'Adige) studies conducted at Settesoli in the late 1980s, Grecanico has long been present on the island, but its tendency to produce low-alcohol wines made it unpopular. Syrah has been promoted as the subzone's ideal red variety, but results so far have not yet proved this contention. The Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot from this region are certainly good, but its climate is too warm to make a Bordeaux-style Cab or Merlot.

DOCs here first proliferated in the mid- to late 1990s: Contessa Entellina, Sambuca, Santa Margherita di Belice, Menfi, and Sciacca. Most of the wineries use the Sicilia IGT denomination, and the DOC typologies are so liberally drawn that they lack distinction.

Cantine Barbera.Marilena Barbera, aided by her mother, directs the family winery, which has fifteen hectares (thirty-seven acres) at Belicello near the seashore at the mouth of the Belice River. They have seven hectares (seventeen acres) of international varieties and eight hectares (twenty acres) of native ones. Some of their vineyards are forty years old. At the winery, I compared two 2009 Inzolias, one from fifteen-year-old vines growing on clay soil and another from forty-year-old vines growing on calcareous soil. The first was bottled as a Sicilia IGT, the second as a Menfi DOC Inzolia Dietro le Case. While the IGT had a limited range of smells, mostly fermentative in character, the DOC had green vegetal smells, was thicker in texture, and had more body. Old vines on the right soil make the best wines. At the La Vota vineyard, in deep, sandy soil in a loop of the Belice River, Cantine Barbera has planted Cabernet Sauvignon. The wine La Vota, a Menfi DOC, had a capsicum nose, a characteristic that I like if it is not extreme (this was not) and if it is balanced by a thick, juicy mouth (which it was). Alba Marina is a Catarratto passito. The Catarratto bunches were twisted when ripe, cutting them off physiologically, but not physically, from the plant. The grapes dried while still attached to the vine, which supplied enzymes to the skins that unlocked a wide array of smells. A touch of oak balanced the aromas of citrus, apricot, and ripe banana. The high acidity of Catarratto helped reduce the heavy sensation of the residual sweetness. The result was a rich but delicate dessert wine.

Di Prima.Davide Di Prima of the Di Prima winery follows in the footsteps of his great-grandfather, who started growing grapes here a hundred years ago. His great-grandfather, however, never would have seen Lake Arancio spreading out below the winery. In his time it was a river. It was dammed during the 1950s to store irrigation water. Davide's father, Gaspare, was the president of the nearby Cellaro cooperative winery. Di Prima started bottling a percentage of his family's grapes in 1999. The family still sells some of its production to cooperatives. There are thirty-seven hectares (ninety-one acres) across three sites: one at 325 meters (1,066 feet), below the winery, looking down on Lake Arancio; another at 425 meters (1,394 feet); and a third, Pepita Roccarossa, a former IRVV experimental site, at more than five hundred meters (1,640 feet). Di Prima's 1999 Syrah attracted critical attention and became its calling card. A 2006 Villamaura Syrah that I tasted in 2010 was dark, minty, camphory, balsamic, rich, and densely textured. It was an extreme wine, very powerful or too powerful, depending on your taste. The Pepita Rosso (there is also a Bianco), a 50–50 Syrah–Nero d'Avola blend, was redder, less thick in the mouth, and just as astringent, but with more acidity. The Gibilmoro Chardonnay that I tasted was too oaky. Di Prima told me he was reducing the oak contact. Pepita Bianco is a 50–50 Inzolia-Chardonnay blend.

Donnafugata.Donnafugata, officially Tenuta di Donnafugata, makes stylish wines with names and labels that project fanciful images of Sicilian culture. The wines are always impeccably made. If criticism could be directed at them, it might be that they are not distinctly place driven. They lack the quirky noses and asymmetric palates of artisanal wines. Giacomo Rallo and wife, Gabriella, have been gradually transferring the management of the estate to their son, Antonio, now in charge of wine production, and their daughter, Jose, in charge of marketing and communications. Tachis, the estate's consulting enologist from 1992 to 2000, had a strong hand in the design of its two most famous dry wines, Tancredi, a Nero d'Avola strongly accented with 30 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, and Mille e Una Notte, a Nero d'Avola with “a small percentage of other varieties,” bottled as a Contessa Entellina DOC. Tancredi, created in 1990, has the Tachis taste, but Mille e Una Notte, created in 1995, has more of a Carlo Ferrini one. Ferrini was Donnafugata's head consulting enologist from 2003 to 2009. In flavor, Tancredi makes a clear nod to Bordeaux, while Mille e Una Notte whispers a mysterious blend of things enmeshed in strong but seamless oak. That is more Ferrini. As of about 2010, Mille e Una Notte has been getting less maturation in oak and more in bottle. Though Ferrini belittles his prowess in white wine vinification, Jose Rallo credits him with excelling in making Donnafugata's white wines—six labels, each with a personality of its own.

Feudo Arancio.Mezzacorona from the Trentino area of Italy bought this farm of 280 hectares (692 acres) in 2001 to provide warm-climate varietal wines to the United States and other export markets. The company name is Feudo Arancio–Nosio. The winery is loaded with refrigeration technology, which must come in handy, since Sambuca can be a very hot place during the summer. The staff at the time of our visit in 2008 was very young, on average under thirty years of age. The two wines that left a memory were Hedonis (70 percent Nero d'Avola, 30 percent Syrah), dark and impenetrable in appearance, with pigment in its legs and a thick, oaky palate, and Hekate, made from Muscat of Alexandria grapes dried on the vine for four to six weeks before fermentation, a sweet, syrupy, but fresh wine exuding floral and citrus smells.

Planeta.The Planeta winery began at the site of the family's fortified baglio at Ulmo, a neighborhood of Sambuca. For many years the family had gathered here to help with the wheat harvest. It became more active during the 1970s and 1980s, as a farm that supplied Settesoli with grapes from ninety hectares (222 acres), mostly of Catarratto, Trebbiano, Grecanico, and a small amount of Sangiovese. In 1985 fifty hectares (124 acres) of experimental vineyards were installed. Among the twenty varieties planted were Nero d'Avola, Grecanico, and numerous international varieties. Merlot, Nero d'Avola, and Grecanico excelled there. Planeta the wine estate was born in 1995. Its first wine, the 1994 Planeta Chardonnay, was an instant success. In 2000 Planeta built a winery at Dispensa, in the township of Menfi. Here it focuses on red wine made with French varieties. Planeta is developing a Merlot, designated by the contrada of origin, Ulmo. It is also developing a Syrah, designated by the contrada, Maroccoli, a site at four hundred meters (1,312 feet) in Sambuca. It has augmented its Fiano from Ulmo with Fiano from Gurra, a Planeta vineyard near the shoreline at Menfi. At Gurra the chalky soils and extra heat increase the floral smells and reduce the bitter tastes of Cometa, Planeta's barrel-fermented Fiano. The La Segreta red and white wines are fine for the everyday dinner table. Tight and tart, Alastro is a Grecanico varietal wine made from the grapes of a twenty-five-year old vineyard at Ulmo. Alessio Planeta plays the pivotal role of directing the estate, though his uncle Diego still has the final word. Alessio makes most of the enological decisions. His cousin Francesca, Diego's daughter, focuses on public relations, and Santi, Alessio's brother, on sales in the Italian market.

Settesoli.This cooperative began selling wine in the mid-1960s. Its first wines were white blends of Inzolia, Catarratto, and Grecanico. Diego Planeta became its president in 1973, at a time when the industry was in grave crisis. Cooperatives were turning toward making wine to be distilled and sold to the European Union. Planeta realized that this was a dead end. He had to point Settesoli in the direction of a positive outcome. In 1986, Scienza organized a collaboration between the IRVV and the IASMA, the foremost research institute in Italy. Planeta volunteered the vineyards of Settesoli farmer-partners to be the sites of experimental vineyards. He put two technicians at the project's disposal. Soon there were about forty experimental vineyards at various Settesoli sites in and about Menfi, planted with about fifty different native and nonnative varieties. At the same time, Planeta involved the Settesoli vineyards in a program that coordinated the IRVV research with a zonation study carried out by the Servizio Geologico dell'Assessorato all'Agricoltura ("Geological Service of the Sicilian Department of Agriculture"). These studies pushed the cooperative to the forefront of Sicily's quality wine revolution. Settesoli compared the studies it was involved in with marketing ones. It paid growers more to plant particular varieties in particular soils using particular rootstocks. In this way, the whole company was directed toward the world market. The most promising international varieties, according to Scienza, were Fiano, Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Syrah. Thanks to the IRVV's vinification studies and wine blend analyses at Virzi in the Palermo area, Settesoli knew early on which of these varieties made good wines on their own and how they functioned in blends. Seventy percent of the vineyard sources for Settesoli are concentrated within twenty kilometers (twelve miles) of the town of Menfi. The cooperative awards its growers for low yields, the sanitary condition of the grapes, and attaining targeted sugar and pH levels. All the wines bear the name of the contrada where the grapes were grown. Fifty percent of the production is red wine. Fifty percent is white. Only four wines come in contact with oak during processing. All Settesoli branded wines have varietal designations except Seligo, which is a blend of Grecanico and Viognier. Settesoli Nero d'Avola is the most sold Nero d'Avola in Italy. The company uses the Sicilia IGT almost across the board. Menfi DOC is used for “meditation” wines (vini di meditazione), which are likely to be dessert wines. Mandra Rossa is the quality brand exported to major foreign markets. My pick of the Mandra Rossa line is the Chardonnay, which is round and satisfying. Settesoli has developed a strong market for its wines in the United Kingdom. It collaborates with its importer there to present another quality brand, Inycon. In 2012, Vito Varvaro succeeded Planeta as the cooperative's president.

SICILY-CENTER

South of the Madonie Mountains, bounded by the Platani River on the west and the Salso River on the east, and north of the mountainous area surrounding the city of Caltanissetta is Sicily-Center, the heart of the island, where the three provinces of Palermo, Agrigento, and Caltanissetta converge. Mountains protect this area of high hills and low valleys on all sides. Here the earth and the sky take on larger dimensions than normal. Valleys separate steep slopes covered with wheat. Vineyards are rare. Roads damaged by landslides languish without repair. They wind endlessly, seeming without direction.

The few producers who make wine here are separated by both significant distances and valleys and mountains. The high elevations, the surrounding high hills and mountains, and the great distance from the sea give this area Sicily's only true continental climate. Storms riding the prevailing winds from the north-northwest during the summer months cannot carry their humidity beyond the Madonie Mountains. However, the scirocco can bring convection-oven summer heat from the south. When this happens, the dark soils absorb the heat, making the surface an inferno. During the night the temperature plunges. Elevation and exposure can moderate overall temperatures. Vineyards usually lie between four and nine hundred meters (1,312 and 2,953 feet). Harvests begin here in mid-August, a month later than for the same varieties planted on the southern coast, and finish at the end of October. Higher elevations and more northerly exposures mean colder all-around temperatures. This makes Sicily-Center a marginal area for viticulture. Perhaps this is why historically there have been so few vineyards there. Extreme day-to-night temperature variation makes the area extremely interesting for white wines.

At lower elevations the soils are predominantly clayey with varying amounts of iron, providing a reddish tint, and varying amounts of calcium carbonates, making pastel reds, browns, and grays. Bands of reddish calcareous clay loaded with marine fossils point back to a time when this area was under water. This is ideal soil for Nero d'Avola and other red varieties that like calcium carbonate. The clay holds enormous amounts of water. If the cracked crust of dried clay is broken up regularly, the old vines with deep roots have no water problems. An artificial lake harboring irrigation water or a lucky find of an underground water source is necessary where soils drain more freely and vines are young. At higher elevations, sandstone and sandy soils dominate. These soils are better for white varieties than for red.

There are three outstanding producers here: Castellucci Miano, Montoni, and Tasca d'Almerita. The DOC Contea di Sclafani that these producers have created for themselves is like virtually all other Sicilian DOCS, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Though the DOC is large, these three wineries are within about ten kilometers (six miles) of one another in the vicinity of the towns of Valledolmo and Vallelunga.

Contea di Sclafani Bianco must be at least 50 percent Grecanico, Catarratto, and Inzolia, with other allowed white varieties rounding out the blend. Rosso must be at least 50 percent Nero d'Avola and Perricone, plus other allowed red varieties. There are also a rosato and a varietal wine designated DOC. These generic regulations do little to define an area with such a singular identity. Catarratto Comune excels here. It feigns Riesling at nine hundred meters (2,953 feet) and higher. Inzolia provides body in blends with Catarratto. Nero d'Avola is lighter in color, more tart, less meaty, with fine astringency. Perricone provides color and texture. Nerello Mascalese makes a pale wine. It is the base of the Contea di Sclafani Rosato, a wine that finds favor in Valledolmo, a town with its back to the Madonie. There is Ciliegiolo too, a variety common along the southern Tuscan coastline. Tasca d'Almerita has achieved great results with Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Castellucci Miano.This producer was a cooperative until 2005. Now under the management of Piero Buffa and the enological supervision of Tonino Guzzo, this estate at Valledolmo has taken off. Vineyards as high as one thousand meters (3,281 feet), old vines, and alberello training provide the foundation for some special wines. That specialness is achieved with the Catarratto variety. At one thousand meters, the harvest sometimes occurs in early November, in the rain or the snow. Shiarà is the Catarratto wine from these unique vineyards, most between 800 and 950 meters (2,625 and 3,117 feet) high. The oldest vintage I tasted, 2005, had developed Riesling-like petrol aromas. A more recent vintage, the 2009, had the pungent, flinty smell of Sauvignon Blanc. Shiarà is the most exciting Catarratto wine produced in Sicily. For its red wines, the estate focuses on Perricone. Guzzo dries the grapes before vinification. He makes an Amarone-style wine, Maravita, concentrated and astringent, and a lighter wine, named Perric.One, using the ripasso method (fermenting with the addition of skins already used for the Maravita). The dried fruit in the aroma of these two wines will appeal to those who appreciate Amarone.

Montoni.Fabio Sireci commutes from Palermo several days per week to manage his estate, Feudo Montoni. The vineyards are on the east-facing slope of a valley that runs north to south, creating a channel for winds. The elevation of his twenty-five hectares (sixty-two acres) of vineyards ranges from 450 to 750 meters (1,476 to 2,461 feet). A comparison between Feudo Montoni Catarratto and Grillo varietal wines clearly shows the more angular nature of the Catarratto. Sireci also makes a Sauvignon Blanc varietal wine. The star here, though, is Nero d'Avola. It features in two wines, the estate Nero d'Avola and a single-vineyard wine, Vrucara. Both are pale reddish and, though without the big fruit common to Sicilian Nero d'Avolas, have a persistent fine astringency that many others lack.

Tasca d'Almerita.The patriarch Lucio Tasca keeps a watchful eye over the estate Conte Tasca d'Almerita, which his sons, Alberto and Giuseppe, now direct and manage. Besides the four hundred hectares (988 acres) of vineyards at Regaleali, northeast of Montoni at Vallelunga in Sicily-Center, the company owns vineyards on Salina and Etna. It also buys grapes from the island of Mozia off Sicily's western coast and rents vineyards at Camporeale, where it produces wines under the Sallier de la Tour label. The company believes in estate-bottled wines. It has plans to build wineries on both Salina and Etna. Tasca d'Almerita offers a remarkably consistent range of wines with respect to quality standards. One of the advantages that Regaleali has over most competitors is vine age as high as forty years. For the most part, vines in Sicily are less than fifteen years old. The vineyards here lie between 400 and 750 meters (1,312 and 2,461 feet) above sea level on diverse soils. The red wines from this estate, particularly the ones in which French varieties play a major or supporting role, are well constructed and stylish. Tasca d'Almerita every year uses two thousand barriques made by nine different cooperage companies. Every year, the company buys six hundred new barriques, then uses them for three years. In search of a seamless whole, the consultant Ferrini crafts the flavor as wines from the different barrels are blended and the brands are constructed. My preferred wines are the Cygnus, a Nero d'Avola–Cabernet Sauvignon blend; Camastra, a Nero d'Avola–Merlot blend; and the famous Cabernet Sauvignon, the best one produced in Sicily.

AGRIGENTO-CALTANISSETTA HIGHLANDS

Rolling hills dominate the area between the Platani and Salso Rivers. Although this was a famous area for wine in the time of the ancient Greeks, throughout much of history it was known for wheat production. During the early nineteenth century the mining of sulfur became the most important industry here, with wine production a distant second. The province of Caltanissetta responded to the vini da taglio wine boom of the 1870s by doubling the vineyard acreage it had in the 1850s. The province of Agrigento had its vineyard boom when it almost tripled acreage from 1949 to 1984. This corresponded to the post-World War II need for Marsala base wine and following growth of cooperatives. The fact that a high percentage of the vines, particularly in Caltanissetta, were trained in tendone indicates that much of the grape production there has been directed toward growing table grapes. There is a lot of table grape production along the coast too. During the 1950s and 1960s, wine merchants roamed the countryside, looking for inexpensive sources of bulk wine. After the 1960s, cooperatives formed, freeing small farmers from the tyranny of the merchants. Most grapes grown in the area are still consigned to cooperative wineries. Morgante understood in the early 1990s that it had to make the transition from supplying grapes to making and bottling quality wine. Its wines have realized the potential of the area, at least for red wine production. A handful of other estates have made the change from bulk to bottle.

Red grapes cover the high hilly areas between and north of the cities of Agrigento and Caltanissetta. Nero d'Avola has been the area's dominant red variety. Sangiovese was planted during the 1970s because of its high yields. During that decade, this area produced mostly rosatos. Inzolia was and is the most important white variety in the hills. During the 1960s and 1970s, there was a well known but very basic white wine, Akragas, made in the vicinity of Agrigento. Akragas was the city's ancient Greek name. This wine, which was sold both for direct local consumption and for use as vino da taglio, was made with Inzolia, Catarratto, and Pizzutella, a minor variety. Closer to the coastline, the grapes are mostly white. Catarratto is the traditional grape. Locals believe that the Greeks brought it here. Much of the wine made from Catarratto has been sold for vermouth production. The area's other important white grape is Inzolia. During the 1970s, Trebbiano was heavily planted, mostly in tendone. The wines it made were light and vapid, good for gulping or distillation. The red grape along the coast is also Nero d'Avola.

Though most of the vineyards in the Agrigento-Caltanissetta Highlands range from four to six hundred meters (1,312 to 1,969 feet) high, there are vineyards along the coastline too, some at sea level. The vineyards are scattered throughout the countryside, indicating the fractionalized nature of landholdings. The zone is very arid and hot during the summer. The areas high up in the hills benefit from greater daily temperature excursion. Right along the coast, during the day there is a cooling onshore breeze. But the scirocco can be ferocious here. In May and October it frequently comes for four-day periods, bringing 70 to 80 percent humidity, which it gathers over the Mediterranean Sea, and sand, which it picks up in the Sahara Desert. Up in the hills the soils vary from reddish clayey, usually selected for red grapevines, to white calcareous, usually chosen for white grapes. Some areas are very rocky. Heading toward the coastline, the soil is increasingly clay dominant. There are calcareous clays here too. In general, the calcium carbonate content of the soil in the Agrigento-Caltanissetta Highlands increases from west to east.

The exceptional estate of these highlands is Morgante Vini in the town of Grotte, about twenty kilometers (twelve miles) to the northeast of Agrigento. When Fran and I made our visit, we thought we had taken the wrong road because parts of it were unpaved and looked bombed out. The only other machines on the road were heavy construction vehicles. When we arrived at our destination, Carmelo Morgante, a son of the patriarch Antonio Morgante, explained that although there was a better access road, the one we had used was the more direct one. “What is normal here is not normal elsewhere. This part of Sicily works in ways that even I don't understand.” He jokingly referred to the nearby city of Favara as “the Republic of Favara.” Carmelo showed us Morgante's vineyards, taking us to some of the many small parcels that make up its sixty hectares (148 acres). We were at roughly four hundred meters (1,312 feet). The soil was mostly clayey, with some whiter areas where more calcium carbonate was present. The major inflection point for the estate, Carmelo explained, was the late 1980s and early 1990s, when local growers suddenly realized the bulk wine market was dying. It was time to change or become obsolete. Antonio understood that the change was coming but believed that his sons, Carmelo and Giovanni, were better equipped to adjust to it. He put them in charge of the winery, and in 1989 the two brothers made their first vinifications. Visiting Vinitaly and tasting the wines there, they realized how little they really knew about making wine. They began to search for someone who could help them. Carmelo met Cotarella and was convinced that he was the answer. Cotarella at the time was reluctant to pick up a Sicilian client, but Carmelo pursued him. After a year of supplications, Cotarella consented, on the condition that the brothers meticulously follow his instructions from the vineyards to the bottling line. They have done just that. The first vintage bottled under his direction was the 1998. Carmelo oversees the winery and the business. Giovanni takes care of the vineyards. Morgante makes three wines, Scinthili, a light red Nero d'Avola with only two days of maturation on the skins, normal Nero d'Avola, strong but a bit coarse and rustic, and Don Antonio. Don Antonio, with its dark, opaque appearance, toasted-oak nose, and thick but fine-textured mouth, is simply the most exotic and delicious bottle of wine with Nero d'Avola on the label.

Twenty kilometers (twelve miles) to the west is the town of Canicatti. Accenting the last syllable makes it sound like the refrain in a Sicilian folksong. One cooperative there, 480 farmers and one thousand hectares (2,471 acres) strong, stands out: Cantina Sociale Viticultori Associati (CVA). In the past ten years it has made great strides in improving the quality of its wines. Many attribute this to the work of its consulting enologist, Tonino Guzzo. Not too far to the northeast, on a direct line between the cities of Agrigento and Caltanissetta, is Masseria del Feudo Grottarossa. This estate, owned by the brother and sister Francesco and Carolina Cucurullo, has one of the oldest Chardonnay vineyards in Sicily. Planted in 1985, it was an experimental plot associated with IRVV research. Masseria's first commercial wine was the 2002 Haermosa, a Chardonnay. It is barrel fermented. Recent vintages are strongly lees accented.

South of Agrigento along the Mediterranean shoreline is the D'Alessandro winery. It is just a few kilometers from the Valley of the Temples, a UNESCO World Heritage Site with the well-preserved ruins of several Greek temples. D'Alessandro's vineyards rise from sea level to five hundred meters (1,640 feet). Its Inzolia vines are trained in tendone, which protects the grape skins from the hot sun (the bunches are below the canopy) and helps lower wine alcohol by reducing fruit sugars. I tasted the 2011 Inzolia in April 2012. It had a pleasant but strong banana and fresh straw nose. With some months of bottle age, the wine should lose the banana, a fermentation smell. The mouth was low in acidity and sapid. The wine tasted of the mineral salts in the soil and the salty sea air. Grillo has been planted here for the past five years. D'Alessandro's 2010 Grillo had citrus and untoasted almond in the nose and was richer and heavier in the mouth than the Inzolia. A 2010 Catarratto was the darkest of the three white wines, due in part to its one year more of bottle age. It was also the most aromatic, with strong pear and straw smells. In the mouth, the wine's sourness gave it length and edge. A 2010 Nero d'Avola and a 2009 Syrah were both vegetal in the nose, a sign of underripe skins. It may be too warm here to ripen these varieties properly. A 2009 Syrah–Nero d'Avola blend did not show this underripeness, perhaps because the barrique that it matured in rounded out those smells. D'Alessandro's best wines are the whites. It is a young estate, born in 2006.

Due east, toward the hills ten kilometers (six miles) shy of the Salso River and near the town of Campobello di Licata, is Milazzo, one of Sicily's twentieth-century pioneers of metodo classico production. Giuseppe Milazzo uses Inzolia, Chardonnay, and Pinot Bianco in his sparkling wines. He grows some of the Chardonnay in tendone, to preserve scent, acidity, and lower alcohol levels. His Maria Costanza bianco is a still wine made with Inzolia, Chardonnay, and Nero d'Avola vinified without the skins. The Maria Costanza rosso is 100 percent Nero d'Avola. Baglio del Cristo di Campobello is farther south, toward the seaside town of Licata, and ten kilometers (six miles) from the sea. One of its vineyards abuts a gypsum mining area, which shimmers in the evening light. Baglio del Cristo di Campobello makes an aromatic Grillo, called Lalùci, that smells as brilliantly as gypsum shines. On the plain of the mouth of the Salso River, at about seventy meters (230 feet) above sea level, is La Lumia (in full, Tenuta Barone Nicolò La Lumia). Bottling began here in the late 1980s. On the advice of Tachis, Nicolò La Lumia increased the maceration time of his Nero d'Avola to eight days, beyond what was typical for the area. The resulting wine, the 1992 Signorio, was atypically astringent. It was released in 1995 after three years in stainless steel. Torreforte, a Nero d'Avola that is fermented on its seeds and skins, needs even more time to soften. Dried Nero d’Avola grapes are added to the fermentation of another La Lumia wine, Limpiados, to extend maceration and increase the alcoholic content to 15 percent. The estate’s Nikao, made from late-harvested, raisined grapes, is a passito Nero d’Avola. Less exotic is the Don Toto, a round, plump, ripe-tasting Nero d’Avola.