Winelingo
Sicily wears two faces: warm, ripe, mouth-filling Nero d’Avola with dark cherry, plum and soft spice; and, up on Mount Etna, lighter, savoury Nerello Mascalese with red-cherry fruit, bright acidity and a smoky, stony edge. The whites are crisp, citrussy and often sea-fresh.
How Sicily wine tastes
Sicily really offers two very different drinking experiences, and it helps to know which one is in your glass. The island’s warm, sunny climate ripens grapes fully, so a classic Sicilian red like Nero d’Avola tends to be generous and mouth-filling: think ripe dark cherry and plum, a little sweet spice, soft rounded tannin and a warming, full body.
Up on the slopes of Mount Etna, an active volcano in the north-east, everything changes. High-altitude vineyards and cool nights slow the ripening right down, so reds made from Nerello Mascalese come out paler and more savoury, with bright red-cherry fruit, fresh acidity, and a distinctive smoky, stony character from the volcanic soil. Many drinkers compare Etna reds to red Burgundy or Barolo rather than to a big, sunny southern red.
Sicilian whites are refreshing and food-friendly: crisp, citrussy and often with a saline, sea-breeze freshness that reflects the island’s long coastline.
Signature styles & what to look for
For an easy, crowd-pleasing red, look for Nero d’Avola, Sicily’s flagship black grape, often bottled on its own and offering lovely value. Cerasuolo di Vittoria, the island’s only DOCG (its top quality tier), blends Nero d’Avola with the lighter Frappato for a brighter, more perfumed style.
For something more distinctive, seek out Etna Rosso (mainly Nerello Mascalese) and Etna Bianco (from the mineral white grape Carricante). Some producers bottle single ‘contrade’, the individual named vineyard plots on the volcano, much as Burgundy does, and these are worth exploring if you want to taste how the mountain’s different sites vary.
Among whites, Grillo and Catarratto give fresh, everyday wines. And don’t forget Marsala, Sicily’s historic fortified wine from the west of the island: a caramel-and-nut, oxidative style that runs from dry aperitif to sweet pudding wine.
The grapes & the land
The key red grapes are Nero d’Avola (warm, ripe and widely planted across the island) and Nerello Mascalese (the elegant, high-altitude speciality of Etna). Among whites, Carricante gives Etna its crisp, age-worthy wines, while Grillo and Catarratto are the workhorses of the warmer lowlands.
Sicily’s split personality comes straight from the land. Most of the island enjoys a hot, dry Mediterranean climate, tempered by sea breezes and cooler nights that keep the wines from tasting merely jammy. Mount Etna is the exception: here vines grow on black volcanic soils at real altitude, sometimes above 900 metres, where the thin air and big day-to-night temperature swings give the wines their unusual freshness and smoky minerality. Centuries of trade also left their mark, shaping the oxidative winemaking behind Marsala.