Marsala: Diverging paths plus eight bottles worth seeking out

Last year I received an invitation to a round table to talk about the future of Marsala. Behind the idea was Cantine Florio, an estate established in 1833 and today part of the corporate group Illva Saronno Holding.

Due to the pandemic, the round table was cancelled but I recently visited the Sicilian west coast to try and understand more about how what was once one of Italy’s most prosperous regions is today struggling to survive.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for eight Marsala wines to try

Marsala: the glorious beginning

The glory days of Marsala began in 1773 when the English trader, James Woodhouse arrived on the west coast of Sicily. Here, he discovered a wine that relied on an ageing process not unlike the solera method used to make Sherry in Spain. Woodhouse added brandy to the wines to preserve them during the journey back to England, and so Marsala as we know it was born (although until around 1830, the wines were labelled as ‘Sicily Madeira Wine’, since the Portuguese cousin was more famous at the time).

During the 19th century, the small town of Marsala became one of the richest in Italy as the popularity of its wines grew – but things would soon change. By the 1920s, its air of prestige had disappeared and its reputation declined. Phylloxera, the financial crises in the 1920s and the two world wars put Marsala in difficulty. There were also imitators making cheap versions of the original, and some of Marsala’s producers began putting out less expensive versions in order to compete.

In recent decades the production of Marsala has dropped sharply. In the 1900s, for example, around 200 producers were making one million hectolitres of Marsala, a number which compares drastically with today’s 10 producers who produce 77,000 hectolitres annually from the region’s 1,218 hectares (2019). Most of today’s production is Marsala Fine, a simple version released after just one year and sold in bulk to the food industry to enhance flavours in chocolate snacks, cakes, or canned meats. 

What is the producers’ strategy to get back on track? Talking to them, it seems each has chosen a plan of their own. While the producers in Jerez are introducing new rules for Sherry (new varieties and versions of non-fortified Fino and Manzanilla) to gain new market share, the situation in Marsala seems more difficult.

Marsala wine: A quick guide

Marsala is a fortified wine from the west of Sicily. It is categorised according to sugar concentration, colour and how long it is aged.

Marsala comes in three colours: ‘ambra’ (amber), ‘oro’ (gold) and ‘rubino’ (ruby).

Additionally, there are five age categories for the wines: ’Fine’ (one year), ’Superiore’ (two years), ’Superiore Riserva’ (four years), ’Vergine’ / ‘Soleras’ (five years), and ‘Vergine’ / ‘Solera Stravecchio’ (10 years). 

The sweetness of Marsala is described as ‘Secco’ (40g/L), ’Semisecco’ (40–100g/L) and ’Dolce’ (100+g/L) and includes both residual and complementary sugar content in the finished wine.

The main white grape varieties used for Marsala are Inzolia (Ansonica), Cataratto, Damaschino and Grillo, while the reds used for the rarer Rubino version are Nerello Mascalese, Nero d´Avola (Calabrese) and Perricone.

Renato de Bartoli, who runs the Marco de Bartoli winery together with his siblings Giuseppina and Sebastiano, has clear opinions on what should be done. ’We must do three things to regain credibility: introduce the ‘perpetuo’ or pre-English version into the DOC; reduce the maximum alcohol to 16% abv; and simplify the labelling terms into just Dolce or Secco. I would also change the name ‘Fine’, maybe into ‘Gastronomic’ since the former only creates confusion,’ he says. 

Perpetuo

Renato’s father, Marco de Bartoli, was the one who, in 1980, created the Vecchio Samperi – a wine categorised as ’perpetuo’ or pre-English, since it followed the local production method used before the arrival Woodhouse. It is an unfortified wine, not coloured, with high natural alcohol content and the result of an assembly of various vintages with a system that recalls the Spanish soleras. 

At the time, the industrial quantity-minded majority did not approve of his new project. This style of wine is today still not recognised in the DOC regulations. Marco was forced to close the winery for around five years, causing severe damage to the company – although it has now largely recovered. On his premature death in 2011, leading critics paid him all the honours, declaring that he had saved the real Marsala from extinction. Last year, he was honoured with a piazza in Marsala that now bears his name. Could Marco de Bartoli’s philosophy be the key for Marsala? 

‘Today, no one makes money with Marsala except the big producers with the industrial production of Marsala Fine, but that is an economy of scale focused on quantity and not quality. Instead, we should focus on our territory and tradition,’ Renato de Bartoli declares. 

Diverging paths

Other producers have chosen different paths: Cantine Pellegrino, a producer active since 1880, changed the strategy for its Marsala in 2019. ‘Today, our bottles are more similar to those you connect with spirits: the labels have strong colours to attract younger customers and the wines are less oxidative and fresher than before. We want to be an alternative to vermouth, and we think that the future of Marsala also lies in being a base for cocktails,’ says Benedetto Renda, president of Cantine Pellegrino. 

Renato de Bartoli, however, disagrees. ‘Using the cocktail segment as a marketing tool is completely wrong and would only create more confusion,’ he argues. 

Marsala’s biggest producer, Cantine Florio – which accounts for 90% of the region’s production – has taken yet another direction: while its primary income comes from sales of Marsala Fine to the food industry and wine tourism (pre-pandemic, Florio had over 55,000 visitors annually to its historical cellars), it has just released its new premium Marsala category with new labels, full of details regarding the ageing process, including the exact time spent maturing, the type of wood used, and even the position of the casks in the cellar; closer to the sea, the temperatures are lower and the salinity in the wines is more evident, according to head oenologist Tommaso Maggio. 

‘We believe that premium Marsala is for a smaller public, close to those who fancy whiskey. Marsala is a wine which must be told, a story that is and should be complicated, for a quite sophisticated crowd,’ explains Tommaso Maggio.

Other producers have changed focus completely and put the majority of their efforts into their non-fortified wines. When I arrived at Caruso & Minini, owner Andrea Artusi had prepared the table with only one Marsala – the rest was white, red, and rosé wine. 

‘We only make one type of Marsala, and we outsource the production to another winery. Marsala is hard to make, time-consuming and complicated to sell. We keep on doing it because of tradition,’ he says.

Andrea also thinks that the biggest producers must take the lead by undertaking a joint project: ‘Small producers do not have a voice. If things change, we would be glad to be part of a new project that could include both perpetuo wines, as De Bartoli makes, but also Marsala used as a base for cocktails.’ 

The future hangs in the balance for Marsala, but while its producers figure out what to do next, here are eight top picks to drink now.

Eight Marsala wines to try:

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