Written by Tony Aspler | 30 November 2011

Golf has one for men and one for women; and so does tennis. So why not wine? I’m talking about a world ranking system for grape varieties, white (ladies) and black (men). You could see what wine style is trending and what is losing consumer favour.

If such a league table were to exist there would be two red grapes that would be currently climbing out of obscurity. Both are indigenous Sicilian varieties and both sound like escapees from the Commedia dell’Arte: Nero d’Avola and Nerello Mascalese.

Nero d’Avola translates as “black from Avola,” a town on the southeast coast of the island, not far from Syracuse. Although the grape, the most widely planted red variety in Sicily, was first propagated around Avola, ironically, you won’t find it in this area anymore.

Written by Evan Saviolidis | 23 November 2011

As you can guess, waking up in the heart of Sicily is one word: delightful. But visiting this imposing and stunningly beautiful island in March is not quite the same as doing so in high summer. This part of the Mediterranean can be quite cool, rainy and windy at this time of year, as the first few days bore out. The country — and one quickly begins to think of Sicily as a land unto itself — also boasts widely different climatic conditions, from very high elevations in wild mountain ranges to fertile plains and valleys and beautiful beaches on many outlying islands.

As a richly fertile island at the centre of the sea lanes of the Mediterranean, Sicily has, over thousands of years, been a prime target for numerous invaders. Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Spanish and the French have all put their stamp on the island, which is a treasure trove of historical and archaeological remains. This rich tapestry has added enormous layers of complexity, not to mention more recent phenomena such as the pervasive influence of the Mafia. Sicily’s turbulent past certainly presents obstacles to working toward common goals. Producers who make up Assovini Sicilia, a non-profit organization dedicated to the marketing and sustainable development of Sicilian wine culture, deserve a great deal of credit for working together effectively to promote the island’s wine as a whole. This is no small achievement in a place where people, shaped by their frequently wild landscape and tempestuous history, can be fiercely passionate and individualistic. The growing success of Sicilian wines today is, in part, a triumph over the burdens of the historical past.
My focus was on Sicily’s new-wave wines, especially those made from indigenous and often very ancient grape varietals. To give some perspective, Sicilian viticulture is about the same size as Australia’s, and roughly the same as Tuscany and Piedmont combined. At one time it was even larger, but with the spotlight now on quality, lesser quality bulk wines are going out of production. The emergence of Sicily as a modern wine culture is very recent. This revolution really gathered steam around the 1980s, led by a core group of inspired winemakers. Among them was a dynamic but as yet little-known operation run by the Planeta family.