My last proper visit to Sicily was back in 2016. So much has happened since then: Brexit, Covid, political convulsions… but also, more happily, many new developments in Sicilian wine. This article focuses on what’s new in Sicilian wine. It is based on a week spent on the island during Sicilia En Primeur, the annual release of new vintages from this very diverse island. Historically, Sicily was first associated with the fortified wine Marsala and then, in more recent decades, with inexpensive white wines, reds made with Nero d’Avola and international varieties. However good Bordeaux blends or Syrah at reasonable prices were (and some were excellent), they don’t represent the native styles. My 2025 visit was a deep dive into what’s new in Sicilian wine.

What’s new?

• Sparkling wine in a range of styles
• Lighter reds: the fashionable, lower alcohol, fresher style
• Rosé: Frappato, even Nerello Mascalese
• Winemaking versatility: five styles of Nero d’Avola from one producer? complex white blends?
• And what’s not new but still great: the classics, including exceptional old Marsala

Wine as as a part of Sicily’s culture

My visit was divided into two parts: a wine tour that focused mainly on the western and southern parts of the island and then a formal tasting of current releases. The former had been designed to show off Sicily’s remarkably rich cultural heritage. We took in Segesta, built by the local Elymians in a Greek style in 430 BCE, more recent Baroque churches, contemporary art installations, pop music and, of course, the truly exceptional cuisine. Sicily has so much to offer, alongside its top wines, beaches, culture, excellent hotels and places to stay, and a unique cuisine derived from so many cultures.

Sparkling wine

As a hot, dry and windy island in the south of the Mediterranean, Sicily is not the obvious place to grow grapes for sparkling wines. But Sicily has some positives, even for this style of wine. Many local varieties are relatively low in alcohol. For example, Catarratto can be 11% ABV, even without early picking. Then, its three main local white varieties are all relatively neutral, even Grillo, which does have some Muscat parentage. Further, its characteristic red varieties, for example Nero d’Avola, can be picked early if the ripeness of the tannins does not matter. If the wine is going to be white or rosé, the tannins will not be extracted.

Fazio makes Nerello Mascalese Spumante Extra Dry, a rosé made with a few hours of skin contact, the grapes having been picked in the middle of August. Tank method is entirely appropriate for this style of wine, to showcase the raspberry and red cherry fruit. Newcomer Tenuta Navarra‘s Rosemosse, Extra Brut Rosato, makes the most of Frappato’s fruitiness but layers it with a touch of yeasty development due to the wine being on the lees in the tank for 60 days. Traditional method wines are made too. Caruso & Minini offer a sparkling Catarratto, Arya, which spends 30 months on the lees, while Tenuta Ferrata on Etna make a Blanc de Noirs from Nerello Mascalese which spends three years on the lees. What’s new in Sicilian wine: here is real diversity and particularity now in Sicilian sparkling wine.

Lighter reds

Chillable, lower alcohol, fruity reds are having a moment. Beaujolais and Loire reds are in vogue in fashionable wine bars, as are Valpolicella or Bierzo. While some of these wines are getting up to 14% ABV, there are still many examples that occupy that summer-drinking, fish-friendly lower alcohol spot. Sicily has now joined this party.

Arianna Occhipinti has perhaps led the charge with her exemplary Frappato and Nero d’Avola blends. Her starting offering is the SP68 Rosso, which can come in at just 12.5% ABV, two-thirds Frappato plus Nero d’Avola, with short ageing in concrete tanks: fresh, vibrant red cherry and dusty fruit. Since 2016, she has pioneered parcel-selection Frappato, showing that it responds to the variety of red sand, dark sand or high limestone content soils. Terrazze dell’Etna have a chillable Etna Rosso, Carusu, made from the fruit of younger vines and aged in barrel for just six months. Perhaps most surprising is Fazio’s Silvaris, a Nero d’Avola, which weighs in at just 12% ABV. All of these wines would make brilliant accompaniments with Sicily’s fish and vegetable-rich cuisine.

Rosato/rosé: even lighter reds?

As we know, rosé wines have become a staple around the world. No longer just a summer drink, now it is regularly chosen throughout the year. Sicily, with its range of native and international black grape varieties and reliable ripening seasons, is a natural place to grow grapes for pink wines.

Frappato is a winning choice, given its red cherry fruit, lower alcohol and tannin, as shown in Caruso & Minini’s Frappo bottling. The current generation’s father worked in Provence so it is no surprise that the wine is pale pink. A locally-selected yeast is chosen to promote the floral and cherry to strawberry fruit. Unusually these days, the wine is made by the saignée method, drawing off a certain amount of juice once the wine has reached the desired colour, leaving the rest of the must to macerate further as a more concentrated red wine. As we have seen, other companies are making sparkling rosés. Given Sicily’s substantial tourist trade (see the next paragraph), surely there is a large local market for pink wines from the island?

Winemaking versatility

The sheer versatility of winemaking is a marked feature of what’s new in Sicilian wine. In the past, there were the standard three whites plus Carricante on Etna, an ocean of Nero d’Avola of varying quality levels, plus the French invaders/welcome migrants of Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon and, especially, Syrah. Now, there are also unusual blends and winemaking versatility. Zonin-owned Principi di Butera presented Nero d’Avola in no fewer than five styles:

• traditional method Blanc de Noirs (i.e. white and sparkling)
• traditional method rosé
• rosato, with a touch of residual sugar and fizz, a real poolside charmer (see above)
• standard red aged for a year in large barrels
• top red, the single vineyard Deliella, one month on the skins and aged for 15-18 months in cask and further years in bottle.

Similarly, some of the blends are creative. For example, Santa Tresa‘s Insieme Bianco is compiled from the native Albanello, Zibbibo (the local version of Moscato) and the Campanian Fiano. The same winery’s Orisi is made with the rare black variety of that name. According to official sources, this variety is the product of natural pollination between Sangiovese and Montonico Bianco. Better known, if still very unusual, Tenuta di Castellaro‘s Pomice Bianco is a blend of the semi-aromatic Malvasia di Lipari with Carricante, these days more associated with Etna than the volcanic island of Lipari.

Not new, but still great!

Finally, it would be perverse not to mention that some of Sicily’s historic wines are genuinely world-class and massively unregarded. The most obvious example would be long-aged Marsala. I had the privilege of tasting two outstanding wines from Cantine Florio with the current winemaker, Tommaso Maggio. While he was definitely responsible for the 2011 Vergine Marsala, he inherited the amazing Marsala Vergine 1947 and the Marsala Superiore Semisecco Riserva 1958. The former was bottled in 1953–yes, even before I was born!–and now shows remarkable layers of coffee, liquorice, caramel, leather and a lively volatile acidity. The sweeter 1958 has a gorgeous richness with tobacco, leather and dried fruit notes. These wines were a suitable climax to my time in Sicily!

Acknowledgements: thanks to the Italian Trade Agency for sponsoring this visit and to Assovini Sicilia and Zedcomm for the event organisation. I particularly valued the winery visits themselves and the ‘speed tasting’ day when we got to taste and talk with wineries on a 20-minute schedule. If you concentrate, it is remarkable what you can achieve in 20 minutes.