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"Discover Sicily"
I’ve written about the Cinderella story behind Piedmont’s barbera grape, but the more I learn about nero d’avola, the more it’s clear that this native son of Sicily also has its rags-to-riches story.Originally, nero d’avola was a farmer wine. It was easy to cultivate under the hot Mediterranean sun—as exuberant in growth as a teenager, [...]
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Fat, bland, and boring. That’s how I used to sum up Sicilian white wines. I used to lament how unfair it was that Sicily offers such fabulous seafood—tuna and swordfish so fresh it looks you in the eye – but nary a judicious wine pairing in sight. Sicily’s big-bodied reds were out of the question, [...]
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Think “Sicilian red wine” and nero d’avola springs to mind. Think “quality Sicilian wineries” and Donnafugata is right there on top. So who better to discuss nero d’avola than Donnafugata’s warm and gracious owner, Josè Rallo? We met up during Gambero Rosso’s Tre Bicchieri presentation in New York this past February, where [...]
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For several years now, Sicily has been bathed in winter rains. “We’re happy with climate change,” says winemaker Guiseppe Melia, cofounder of Ceuso. “Rain in winter, wind in summer, hot in summer: it’s perfect for red wines—like the past few years.”
Right now, Sicily is doing wonderful impersonation of Botticelli’s Primavera, with multicolored flowers [...]
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One of the great things about running wine tours is being able to follow wineries as they develop and grow. We’ve been coming to Sicily since 2002, so we’ve witnessed significant change. It’s ironic, given Sicily’s 2,500-year viticultural history. But despite this ancient wine culture, Sicily is one of Italy’s newest, [...]
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