Sicily in a Glass: The New Elegance of Southern Italian Wine

For a long time, southern Italian wine was described through warmth.

Sun. Ripeness. Generosity. Powerful reds. Mediterranean richness.

None of those descriptions are necessarily wrong. But when it comes to Sicily, they are increasingly incomplete.

Some of the most exciting wines being produced in Italy today are coming from an island we once associated almost automatically with heat and concentration.

Instead, Sicily is giving us wines that can be fragrant, mineral, energetic and remarkably precise.

Wines shaped by altitude, volcanic soils, sea winds and native grape varieties. Wines that can feel almost weightless despite coming from one of the warmest parts of Europe.

And perhaps that is the most interesting thing about modern Sicilian wine.

Its new elegance is not really new at all.

It is simply Sicily being understood more clearly.

Sicily Is Not One Wine Region

Looking at Sicily as a single wine region is a little like looking at Italy as a single cuisine.

The island is simply too varied.

There are high-altitude vineyards on the slopes of Mount Etna, limestone and sandy soils around Vittoria, vineyards influenced by the Mediterranean Sea and inland areas shaped by heat, wind and elevation.

The grapes change with them.

Nero d'Avola can be dark and savoury. Frappato can be light, floral and beautifully perfumed. Carricante can produce white wines with striking acidity and mineral tension. Grillo can move from simple freshness to something much more textured and serious.

Arianna Occhipinti's wines provide one of the clearest introductions to this diversity.

The 2024 Occhipinti 'SP68' Terre Siciliane Rosso brings together Frappato and Nero d'Avola in a style built around freshness, fragrance and drinkability rather than weight.

Its white counterpart, the 2024 Occhipinti 'SP68' Terre Siciliane Bianco, heads in another direction entirely: aromatic, textured and savoury, built from Moscato di Alessandria and Albanello.

Two wines from the same producer and the same corner of Sicily, yet completely different personalities.

Already, the idea that Sicilian wine must mean one particular style starts to disappear.

Frappato and the Beauty of Lightness

If there is one grape that challenges old assumptions about southern Italian reds, it may be Frappato.

Frappato rarely relies on power.

Its appeal comes from perfume, freshness and transparency: red cherry, strawberry, flowers, herbs and spice rather than dense colour or heavy tannin.

Good Frappato can be almost delicate in appearance while remaining enormously expressive.

This is part of what makes Arianna Occhipinti's wines so compelling.

Her single-vineyard Frappato wines show just how much detail this grape can carry.

The 2022 Occhipinti 'BB' Frappato sits alongside the 2022 Occhipinti 'PT' Frappato and 2022 Occhipinti 'FL' Frappato, offering different interpretations of the same variety through individual vineyards.

There is something very contemporary about these wines.

Not because they chase fashion, but because they reject the idea that serious wine has to be powerful.

Perfume can be serious.

Freshness can be serious.

A wine that makes you immediately want another glass can be every bit as interesting as one that demands hours of contemplation.

Nero d'Avola Without the Heaviness

The same reconsideration is happening with Nero d'Avola.

For years, the grape was often associated with Sicily's richer side: dark fruit, warmth, concentration and alcohol.

But that is only one interpretation.

Occhipinti's 2022 'Siccagno' Nero d'Avola shows another.

There is depth and Mediterranean character, certainly, but the wine is built around freshness and savoury detail rather than simple power.

Then there is Cerasuolo di Vittoria, one of Sicily's great traditional combinations, bringing Nero d'Avola together with Frappato.

The 2020 Occhipinti 'Grotte Alte' Cerasuolo di Vittoria shows why the partnership works so well.

Nero d'Avola contributes structure and depth.

Frappato brings perfume, lift and energy.

The result feels distinctly Sicilian.

Warmth without heaviness.

Structure without aggression.

Ripeness without losing freshness.

Then There Is Etna

Mount Etna has completely changed the way many wine drinkers think about Sicily.

Taste the wines and it becomes easy to understand why.

Altitude changes everything.

So does volcanic soil.

So do the old vineyards scattered across different elevations and exposures of an active volcano.

Etna reds, particularly those based on Nerello Mascalese, can be surprisingly pale, with bright acidity, fine tannin, red fruit, dried flowers, herbs and a distinctly savoury, stony character.

They can feel a long way removed from the traditional image of a powerful southern Italian red.

Few producers represent Etna's identity more clearly than Salvo Foti.

The 2024 Salvo Foti 'I Vigneri' Rosso is a beautiful introduction to this style: savoury, energetic and unmistakably volcanic.

Move further into the range and there is the 2019 Salvo Foti 'Vinupetra', produced from old vines on the northern side of Etna.

Vinupetra is not about polish or obvious concentration. Its character comes from old vineyards, native grapes, volcanic stone and traditional Etna viticulture.

These are not wines trying to imitate some fashionable idea of "volcanic wine."

The mountain is simply impossible to remove from them.

Sicily's Whites Deserve the Same Attention

The conversation around Sicily has traditionally focused heavily on red wine.

That now feels increasingly outdated.

On Etna, Carricante can produce some of Italy's most distinctive whites.

The 2023 Salvo Foti 'Aurora' Etna Bianco Superiore shows the variety's ability to combine citrus, acidity, salinity and mineral tension.

It is a style that seems almost contradictory when you remember how far south Sicily lies.

Frank Cornelissen offers another interpretation of Etna white wine with the 2022 Frank Cornelissen 'Munjebel' Bianco.

There is texture and personality, but also the energy and savoury quality that makes Etna so distinctive.

Move away from Etna and Sicily changes again.

Occhipinti's 2023 'SM' Grillo shows how serious Grillo can become when the grape is given proper attention.

This is far removed from the simple, inexpensive Grillo many drinkers first encounter.

Sicilian white wine is no longer a footnote to the island's reds.

It is becoming one of the strongest reasons to explore the region.

Rosato That Belongs at the Table

Even rosato takes on a different personality in Sicily.

Frank Cornelissen's 2024 'Susucaru' Rosato sits somewhere between traditional rosé and light red wine.

It has freshness, but also texture, grip and enough structure to make it genuinely useful at the table.

Cornelissen himself treats the wine as something far more gastronomic than a simple summer rosé, with Nerello Mascalese accompanied by local white and aromatic varieties.

Then there is the 2023 Salvo Foti 'Vinudiluce' Rosato, another reminder that Sicilian rosato does not need to be treated simply as something to drink beside a swimming pool.

These are wines for food.

Charcuterie.

Grilled fish.

Vegetables.

Pasta.

Roast chicken.

Long lunches.

In other words, exactly where Italian wine tends to make the most sense.

The New Elegance Is Really an Old Idea

There is a temptation in wine to describe every change as a revolution.

Sicily does not need one.

Many of the things making its wines so exciting today are actually very old.

Native grape varieties.

Ancient vineyards.

Alberello-trained vines.

Mixed plantings.

Traditional farming.

A deep understanding of individual places.

What has changed is perhaps our willingness to appreciate them.

Drink Frappato and Sicily suddenly becomes fragrant and delicate.

Drink Carricante and it becomes saline, vertical and mineral.

Drink Nerello Mascalese from Etna and the island becomes mountainous rather than simply Mediterranean.

Drink a serious Grillo and another assumption disappears.

This is what makes Sicily so compelling right now.

Not simply the quality of its wines, but their refusal to fit comfortably into the image we once had of southern Italy.

There is sunshine, certainly.

There is warmth.

But there is also altitude, wind, stone, acidity, perfume, restraint and extraordinary diversity.

The old version of Sicily gave us powerful southern wine.

The Sicily worth discovering today gives us something much more interesting.

Identity.

And increasingly, elegance.

Explore our Sicilian wines from Arianna Occhipinti, Frank Cornelissen and Salvo Foti at Bricchi & Barrett.

Written by Vittorio, Chief Tasting Officer