2011 Grappoli del Grillo, Marco De Bartoli, Marsala, Sicily

2011 Grappoli del Grillo, Marco De Bartoli, Marsala, Sicily

Product: 25356
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2011 Grappoli del Grillo, Marco De Bartoli, Marsala, Sicily

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Description

Grillo is the grape of Marsala, behind its fortified wine – and effectively of the entire western side of Sicily. A cross between Zibibbo (Moscato) and Catarrato, it thrives on the sedimentary sandy limestone (strewn with fossils) that characterise the western corner and indeed those of De Bartoli's Contrada Samperi, home to the De Bartoli family, near the town of Marsala itself. Here the De Bartoli fruit lap up the Sicilian sun, basking in its light, constantly ventilated by island breezes to give a medium-to-full dry wine with great, suave intensity of ripe cedro (an enlarged, lemon) and crustaceous notes, while remaining exquisitely elegant and moreish. Great with food, particularly squid ink pasta. Vinified in used 10 hectarelitre French fusti, using only wild yeasts, it's also capable of ageing well in bottle, as shown by the sapid 2001 I was fortunate to taste.
David Berry Green On the nose, Sicilian lemons entwine with honeysuckle and a hint of gunflint. Well balanced and charcterful, this works wonderfully well with food.
Alice Cave, London Shop

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About this WINE

Marco De Bartoli, Sicily

Marco De Bartoli, Sicily

Marco De Bartoli seems to have single-handedly restored (rescued?) the good name of Marsala, two hundred years after the British put it on the map (and before the Italians reduced it to a mere cooking ingredient). The 20ha family baglio (cantina/winery) close to the Sicilian town of Marsala is now also producing a range of sweet passito, fine dry white and excellent sparkling wines.

Scion of two industrial producers, Pellegrino and Mirabella, in 1978 Marco De Bartoli chose the lonely route to quality, deciding to grow and vinify the fruit himself in-house. To re-inforce this message he launched their flagship wine: ‘Vecchio Samperi’, named after the location of their baglio/farm, ‘Samperi’: a 100% ‘perpetuum’/solera aged 100% Grillo wine, it’s an original ‘Marsala’ made without fortification or the adding of ‘mistella’ (caramelised sweetner), perpetually racked to produce a fine, dry, delicate ‘rancio’ style wine. Alongside, De Bartoli also produces a range of classical, English-style, quality Marsala Superiore Riserva, from his own vineyards, using only Grillo (for quality) and not adding Inzolia or Catarratto (for quantity).

His children, Renato, Sebastiano and Giuseppina have now succeeded their father, continuing along the path of quality, but their campaign is to further promote Sicily’s autochthonous (indigenous) grape varieties (in the face of the sea of international ones), notably local Grillo, Zibibbo, Catarratto and red Pignatello (Perricone), through dry still and sparkling wines (the latter called ‘Terzavia’ in reference to the three ways in which Grillo can be vinified: oxidative, still white and sparkling!)

And since 1986 they have been producing a sweet Passito on the island of Pantelleria, close to Tunisia. Here the family own 8ha of Zibibbo vineyards (Muscat di Alessandria/Canelli) at the contrada/frazione of Bukkuram, making only a couple of thousand cases a year.

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