Sicily: The Island Nation

BY ERIC GUIDO | JUNE 10, 2021

As a country – or as its inhabitants would say, a continent – unto itself, Sicily is the most truly unique and also diverse of Italy’s regions. It was dominated and oppressed over the course of thousands of years, and each group of unwelcome occupants left their own cultural mark, whether it be food, wine, art or language, all of which Sicilians take great pride in. The landscape is as diverse as the people, yet also quite extreme, from the scirocco-swept island of Pantelleria in the southwest, to the arid, sandy vineyards on the shores near Noto and Vittoria in the extreme southeast, to Mount Etna in the north, where the climate is cool, moist and nearly continental and the soils turn to volcanic stone and lava flows. Still further north, we arrive at the Mediterranean-influenced and picturesque Aeolian Islands, between the shores of Sicily and mainland Italy. Finally, back to the heart of Sicily, wrapping around the northwest horn of the island, we find Palermo, Marsala and Menfi, where soils shade more to clay, but under the unrelenting dry heat and light that the entire island's agriculture thrives in. 

Palermo's Cathedral.

As amazing as this all sounds, and as ingrained as wine has always been in Sicily, it has not been an easy road to where we are today. 

The path that led me to Sicily was food, but not in any restaurant or book. Instead, my introduction to the region and its incredible culture, history, food and wine came from the family that moved in next door to us in Queens, New York, when I was only three years old. Even though I was raised primarily with a southern Italian leaning, our new neighbors’ ways, their language and the amazing aromas that would emanate from their kitchen were both alien and irresistible. Oftentimes, their conversations would take place without a single spoken word, instead using hand signals, facial gestures and eye movements, as they were quite guarded and protective, as well as suspicious of anyone they didn’t know. It was through their children, around the same age as I was, that I learned so much about Sicilian pride and their unparalleled devotion to family, friends and elders. Spending countless days playing in our yards and snacking on the unique array of foods that would emerge from their kitchen window created many of the happiest memories of my life. Red sauces were made through a flash in the pan, not over the course of a day. All vegetables, of which there were many, were fresh and often from their garden. I doubt they ever heard of boxed pasta; instead, freshly cut strands of their own making would be left out hanging to dry. Then there was the sweet tooth, something I wasn’t accustomed to, which came in the form of all kinds of cookies, sweetened ricotta-filled pastries and citrusy sorbetto. All of this ultimately resulted in me finding my way into their kitchen, to learn at the hip of their mother and nonna (grandmother), as they cooked all day long. As for wine, it flowed, but from large jugs that were kept in the refrigerator or under the sink. I was always welcome to have a small cup (no stems were found in this house) of that heady, intense, rich juice. 

These were my first impressions of Sicily and its culture, foods and wine. However, when fine wine became a study of mine many years later, Sicily wasn’t on my list of regions of focus, but it certainly would be on that list today.

With a vine-growing history that predates the arrival of the Greeks on its shores, Sicily has always been an island that places tremendous importance on the production of wine. Through numerous occupations, invasions, world wars, poverty and multiple failed attempts by the Italian government to improve their agriculture systems, the island endured. Oftentimes, this happened at the expense of farmers and families who would tend their parcels of land to fill the coffers of the large cooperatives, of which there were many. For decades, the quality-minded growers and winemakers of Sicily worked hard to rise above stereotypes of overproduction and substandard wines, but there was simply too much quantity to contend with. Finding a good bottle of Sicilian wine, versus one that was produced through a system of lowest common denominators, was nearly impossible. In fact, there was a time when it seemed that wine lovers and collectors were about to write off Sicilian wine – that is, of course, until the rediscovery of Mount Etna. 

An aerial view of Planeta's vineyards in Capo Milazzo, one of Sicily's northern-most winemaking regions.