Boarding pass for Sicilian wine: Planeta’s first wine bar arrives at Palermo Airport

Made-in-Sicily wine is ready to check in and depart for new international routes: the first single-brand wine bar signed Planeta, one of the island’s wine cellar-symbols of enology, is born at Palermo Airport. In the Falcone e Borsellino airport’s boarding area, on the third level, a large space with a panoramic view of the sea will offer typical Sicilian dishes along with the winery’s wines, ready to be tasted and purchased by the many travelers who arrive and depart from the Palermo airport every year (in the first ten months of 2022 there were more than 6 million). The new Planeta Wine Bar will be inaugurated between 2023 and 2024, upon completion of the planned work inside the airport.
Planeta’s is just the latest among the many initiatives in the “travel retail” sphere, a channel increasingly manned by Italian wine among stations and airports around the world: from Bottega’s Prosecco Bars in numerous international airports, such as London and Dubai, to Allegrini and Villa Sandi’s wine bar at Venice’s Marco Polo Airport, via Ferrari at Milan Malpensa, Linate and Rome, not forgetting Frescobaldi’s wine bar at Fiumicino. Also at Fiumicino there are the two Zonin-branded bars, while at Naples Capodichino there is the lounge bar signed Feudi di San Gregorio.
Autogrill, the Italian on-the-move catering specialist, together with Chef Express and Mychef won the tender promoted by Gesap - the company managing services at Punta Raisi airport - for the 10-year management of spaces dedicated to gastronomic offerings. Planeta, a historic family of Sicilian viticulture, with more than 30 labels and 7 wineries distributed in the different territories of the region, presented together with Autogrill an effective proposal with a strong identity: an excursus into the family’s culinary tradition and Sicilian gastronomic history synthesized in a streamlined format with a contemporary flavor, suitable for quick consumption at the airport. The pairings will be exclusively with Planeta wines.
“We have been farmers for 17 generations, and wine, along with oil and hospitality, represents the synthesis of our deep love for the land”, comments Alessio Planeta, CEO Planeta, “and respect for nature. We are proud to be able to tell the history and extraordinary biodiversity of the region to Italian and foreign travelers passing through Palermo. For decades, Palermo Airport has been the starting point of our wanderings around the world, the beginning of the tale of our work and that of other wine colleagues to tell a Sicily different from that of stereotypes. Sicilian wine was the first sign of an evolving land, from the 1990s to the present. This is why we immediately married Autogrill in this new initiative: Planeta Wine Bar will be the welcome to Sicily and the last pleasure before leaving again”.