Sicily Guide

The most basic of Tenuta delle Terre reds from grapes grown on the cool slopes of Mt. Etna in Sicily, the 2006 Etna Rosso is a wonderful discovery. Lush and easy drinking, with hints of dark cherries, tobacco and wild herbs, it has an earthiness and texture reminiscent of Burgundy. Everything grown at this high altitude with its changeable weather is hard-won, and Marc de Grazia, one of the most important exporters and champions of Italian wines in the last two decades, brings everything he knows about winemaking to this very personal project.

Read more at Los Angeles Times

Erico Asimov at the New York Times’ Pour Blog talks about the Cerasuolo di Vittoria, one of my favorite Sicilian wines.

I haven’t had a lot of these wines, but each time I’ve opened a bottle I’ve enjoyed it tremendously. The wines have been fresh and lively, thoroughly refreshing, and while not the most complex wines in the world their lightness and vivacity insistently invite you back for another glass. It’s versatile with food – just last week we opened a bottle with a lunch of steamers, followed by chorizo and pork chops, and the Cerasuolo easily bridged the gap.

Read more at The Pour Blog

Even though I am not a fan, here is what Robert Parker writes on Business Week about this wine:

90 POINTS
Colosi 2006 Nero d’Avola (Sicily). Offering complexity along with well-articulated notes of mint, violets, and chocolate that complement its gorgeous sweet, dark fruit, this winner from Colosi should not be missed. Anticipated maturity: 2008-2012.
$12

I like Cantine Colosi. They produce good value wines. Next time you buy a wine, keep this Nero d’Avola in mind and try it yourself!

Read full article at BusinessWeek.com

Wine has been made in Sicily since at least the fifth century B.C., but it’s taken about 2,500 years to get it right.

Even 20 years ago, Sicily was known mainly for Marsala and dessert wines, while many of the region’s cooperatives deliberately overproduced wine so it could be distilled into industrial alcohol, as allowed under EU laws.

Only a handful of Sicilian wineries, like Duca di Salaparuta and Regaleali, used modern technology to produce premium varietals, and only in 1995 did the Planeta family, with landholdings in Sambuca di Sicilia since the 1600s, produce its first commercial vintage — a highly successful chardonnay and a fiano.

Read more at Bloomberg.com

And - of course - they feature one of my favorites: Amaro Averna from Caltanissetta. […] In Italy, amari are typically consumed while standing at a bar, or after dinner when a bottle of the house’s preferred amaro is set on the table once the plates are cleared. Some brands, like Fernet-Branca, Ramazzotti and Averna, have even become national names in Italy, available at bars and trattorias up and down the Italian peninsula.

Read more at San Francisco Crhonicle

I discovered Renee’ Restivo through a group of foodies on meetup in New York. She is creator of the NYC Sicilian Food, Wine & Travel Club. I love receiving her email updates and news.

A cooking instructor and writer with a passion for authentic Italian regional cuisine, Renée Restivo divides her time between Italy and New Jersey. Known for her vivacious spirit, sincere enthusiasm and a love for lesser known ingredients and hill towns in Italia, she leads culinary tours and cooking lessons in Sicily, Veneto and Tuscany, where she gathers recipes and stories about opera-singing fish sellers, shepherds on vespas and thousand-year-old olive trees. When she is in the states, she teaches regional Italian cooking.

When you are around, you When you are around, you definitely should join her to one of her meet-ups in New York City.

Here are some links to learn more about her:

Radio
Radio Show with Rick Steves

Videos
Silversponcookbook

Articles
Article I
Article II
Article III

Her meet-up group in New York

The first time we visited Sicily, we were very pleasantly surprised by the delicious food and the excellent wines that we enjoyed.

I remember our first dinner in Palermo, when we tasted a fabulous wine at the recommendation of the sommelier Mille e una Notte (”a thousand and one nights”). We were intrigued by the name of the winery, Donna fugata, which we immediately associated with the name of the summer home of the Principe di Salina, played by Burt Lancaster in the film “Il Gattopardo” (”The Leopard”). The movie was based on the famous novel by Sicilian writer Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa.

Read more at El Paso Times

“Elegance, fruit, balance, and organoleptic nobility; it’s a four to five star harvest. 2007 will also be remembered for the reappraisal of production processes that induced high quality Sicilian wine producers to create wines capable of satisfying the new demands of consumers”.
This is the conclusion made by one of the most famous and authoritative enologists in the world, Riccardo Cotarella, on the progress of Sicilian wines (an island that has become a central winemaking region) and of the ratings given by wine enthusiasts for the 2007 harvest (with production registering a decline of 40%).

Read more at Wine News

I keep publishing articles I find about Sicilian wines here and there. Beppi Crosariol reports his experience at an Italian wine showcase in Canada.

One of the defining moments of this year’s Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival, at least for me, involved Pinocchio.

Not the mendacious marionette of the Italian fable, but something else with an impressive nose, a wine by that name made from the almost-famous Sicilian grape nero d’Avola.

“I lo-o-o-ve this wine,” declared a woman displaying the Valley Girl legato tones and denuded midriff of someone in her mid-20s.

Seeing as supplies had sold out at the festival’s temporary liquor store in the waterfront convention centre, would the visiting Italian exporter sell her a bottle under, ahem, the table?

Her ample charms notwithstanding, the woman failed to persuade Alessandro Costantini to break the rules. “Sorry,” said the co-founder of Milan-based Wineoclock SRL, with a smile. “Cannot.”

Emerging Mediterranean grapes, catchy modernist labels and dulcet Italian accents were everywhere at the 30th-annual festival, a week-long downtown blowout that culminated on Sunday and featured Italy as its theme.

Read more at the GlobeandMail.com

An article came across my attention the other day. It talks about Sicilian wines and confirms what I already think it is happening in the wine world today. The title “If wines were a game, Sicily’s reds would be most-improved player” does not really start well, but the content is better…

While the weather is still cold, keep an eye out for Nero d’Avola from Sicily.

For a very long time, Sicily was known as a place that made massive quantities of mediocre wine. When we were young, we tended to find Sicilian wines at neighborhood Italian restaurants, and we remember the reds as somewhat harsh and the whites as oxidized (and, of course, we cooked with Marsala). But that has changed dramatically in the past decade or so as a new generation of committed winemakers has focused more on quality and less on quantity.

Read more at Daily Herald

If you love tuna, this is the festival for you. Bonagia (Valderice) e Favignana in the Trapani province will be hosting a tuna festival. There will be guided tours, concerts, shows and tastings for everybody.

For more information, visit Rassegna Bonton (in Italian)

The hotel Hilton Portorosa in Furnari (ME) will host a wine tasting of Rapitala’ wines. The chef Rocco Raneri will prepare a special menu with Sicilian delicacies. The cost of the wine tasting is is 45 Euros.

For more information, please visit Hilton Portorosa

This week I am in the mood of talking about food… The picchi-pacchi Sauce is a traditional Sicilian sauce. Do not ask me about the origin of the name which is quite curious! I never really tried it before going to work to the other side of the island in Palermo (I am originally from the Messina province). This sauce consists of four basic ingredients:

tomatoes
basil
anchovies
lots of garlic

Click here to get more details on how to make fettuccine with picchi-pacchi sauce.

I still remember those days when my mother was peeling and slicing a few lemons and an orange to make a quick salad for me and a few neighbors who constantly were dropping by. The dressing we were using was as simple as the salad: salt, vinegar and olive oil. Lemons in Sicily are not as bitter as the ones I get here in New York, plus they are bigger.

Today, I came across this recipe on boston.com. It is quite different, but I think it is worthy a try!

Sicilian wines are Sicily’s best ambassador. I will never stop saying that. This time they are present at the Milan Fashion Week from February 16 though 23. Fifty different wineries are presenting their label during the event.