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Wines of Italy

Sicily wine


Contrasts are not the least of those things in which Sicily abounds. So perhaps it is not surprising that this ancient island boasts one of Italy's most progressive wine industries or that a region noted chiefly in the past for strong and often sweet amber Marsala and Moscato has switched the emphasis toward lighter, fruitier winesÒmainly white but also red. Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean, has more vineyards than any other Italian region. Yet, with the emphasis shifting from quantity to quality, wine production has diminished recently to slightly less than that of Veneto.

A major share of the DOC is represented by Marsala, a wine originated by English merchant traders two centuries ago. Marsala remains Sicily's proudest wine despite the not so distant era of degradation when it was used mainly for cooking or flavored with various syrups and sweeteners. Recently it has enjoyed a comeback among connoisseurs, who favor the dry Marsala Vergine and Superiore Riserva with the warmly complex flavors that rank them with the finest fortified wines of Europe.

Wine

In Sicily the only other DOC wine made in significant quantity is the pale white, bone dry Bianco d'Alcamo, which is now part of the broader Alcamo appellation. Moscato di Pantelleria, from the remote isle off the coast of Tunisia, is among the richest and most esteemed of Italian sweet wines in the Naturale and Passito Extra versions. Malvasia delle Lipari, from the volcanic Aeolian isles, is a dessert wine as exquisite as it is rare.

Such international varieties as Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon and the Pinots show real promise in Sicily. But some of the island's finest wines come from native varieties, notably Nero d'Avola (or Calabrese), Nerello Mascalese and Perricone (or Pignatello) and the reds and Inzolia and Grecanico among the whites. Sicily has taken the lead in winemaking in the modern south as producers seem increasingly determined to live up to the promise that was already admired millennia ago by the Greeks and Romans.

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Characteristics

Important wine-relevant geographic characteristics of Italy include:
The extensive lattitudinal range of the country permits wine growing from the Alps in the north to almost within sight of Africa in the south
The fact that Italy is a peninsula with a long shoreline, contributing moderating climate to coastal wine regions
The extensive mountains and foothills providing a range of altitudes for grape growing and a variety of climate and soil conditions

Italy wine

Good and excelent wines are found in the historical wine countries as in the new ones.
Peaceful, welcoming landscapes or dramatic, rough ones, as well as venerable coltural heritages, enrich most continents.
Tasty, various, and healthy cuisines belong, instead, only to few lucky countries.
But few, gifted places offer a balance of all of that at once, and of that old fashined art of living.