The vine and wine linked to history and UNESCO World Heritage in Sicily “oenological continent”

The Alberello di Pantelleria vine is probably the easiest UNESCO heritage to link to Sicilian wine. In the “oenological” continent of a thousand souls, a treasure chest of a variety of native, ancient and international vines capable of telling the story of a wine mosaic that goes from the power of Nero d’Avola to the elegance of Nerello Mascalese, from the aromaticity of Malvasia and Zibibbo to the pleasantness of Grillo, to give a few examples among many, perhaps that nowhere else in the world, the heritage of mankind, which is linked to wine between landscape, architecture and history, and which is one of the common threads of “Sicilia en Primeur”, in Syracuse, so that “the enhancement of wine also passes through the enhancement of the territory, and, at the same time - explains Alessio Planeta, president of Assovini Sicilia - wine becomes one of the most important keys to understanding our region. And it is thanks to the connection between history and beauty, as well as the wine Renaissance experienced by Sicily in recent decades, that wine has become one of the pillars of the economic revival (with a turnover of 550 million euros) and image of the island. Just think, to mention “only” the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, of the late Baroque towns of Val di Noto, which support one of the most important wine districts of the island, as is Monte Etna, a territory that has been the recent star of Sicilian wine. The Aeolian Islands, with their thousands of expressions of wine-related mainly to the Malvasia of Leipzig, through the Archaeological Park and landscape of the Valley of the times of Agrigento, the largest archaeological site in the world, with its 1,300 hectares, where the remains of Doric temples also watch over the vineyards, and with several wine projects that keep alive the park.
On the other hand, in an island where viticulture is thousands of years old, and which is the first vineyard in Italy, with just under 100,000 hectares planted with vines on the 660,000 of the whole country, the vineyards design the landscape of the entire territory, which preserves uniqueness, always to remain on the UNESCO theme, such as the Arab-Norman Paleremo and the Cathedrals of Cefalù and Monreale, the Villa del Casale in Piazza Armerina, or Syracuse and the rocky necropolis of Pantalica. Who knows how many toasts have closed the shows, over the centuries, of “L’Opera dei Pupi”, another intangible UNESCO heritage of Sicily, without forgetting, of course, those transactional but linked to the island, the “Mediterranean Diet”, with many symbolic products, from oil to wine, but not only, that characterize what in the past was “the granary of the Mediterranean”, or dry stone walls that in many cases support and protect the vineyards. A cultural and artistic richness, illustrated by Professor Rita Cedrini of the University of Palermo, which is also reflected in a wine variety made of 23 DOC and 1 DOCG, the highest expressions of the quality of Sicilian wine. The latest fruit of which, that of the 2018 vintage, is the protagonist in the glasses of “Sicilia en Primeur”. A harvest “that in Sicily has been a leopard spot, however good, despite some rain in the harvest period that however has affected only a few vineyards, and with peaks of absolute excellence on Etna and in the south-eastern territories,” said Alessio Planeta, Assovini’s guide to WineNews.