Sicily is deservedly in the wine spotlight these days

I noted a few weeks ago that most of the vineyard regions in the European Union have been slowly decreasing in size since 2007 (How well do you know the common European wine-making regions?). One of the bigger reductions has been on the island of Sicily, whose warm and dry Mediterranean climate has traditionally allowed it to be a large producer of bulk wine (as also is the nearby mainland region of Puglia).

Along with this reduction in grape-growing, however, there has been a move towards premium wine-making. This implies that the Sicilians are now focusing on growing grapes that allow them to make wines with a recognized provenance; and this has garnered increasing attention form the wine media. This is the subject of this post, based on information from the official Instituto Regionale Vino e dell’Olio, and their data for Superfici ed Uve a DO e IG rivendicate (2011-2019).

Within the Italian wine certification system, names are protected (not wines). You can make any wine you like, but if you want to use a particular wine name on the label, then you need to meet the (current) specified guidelines for that name. These include the grape varieties, area of origin of the grapes, and aspects of the wine-making style (notably minimum alcohol content). There are three high-quality designations recognized (in decreasing order):

• Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG)
• Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC)
• Indicazione Geografica Tipica (IGT)

The first graph shows us how much vineyard area has been included in each group. There is currently only one DOCG area in Sicily (Cerasuolo di Vittoria), and so I have included it with the DOC areas. As you can see, the overall area of Sicilian vineyards has been slowly decreasing recently, but the area of DOC+IGT vineyards has remained fairly constant at c. 47,000 hectares (since 2012, c. 46% of the area).

So, the area used for making bulk wines is being reduced, but not the higher-quality stuff. In 2018, the Sicily DOCs produced the 7th largest volume of DOC wine in Italy, with 3.8% of the total (well behind Prosecco DOC, with 22.7%, since Prosecco is the biggest-selling Italian wine worldwide). The Sicily IGTs, on the other hand, produced the country’s biggest amount of IGT wine (12.3%), but only very slightly ahead of Veneto IGT. This compares with being dead last in price (€/liter) for bulk wines; so you can see why there is an interest in upgrading the quality. Something like 60% of Sicily’s vineyards are dedicated to the Cataratto variety (a white), which is used for making marsala in Sicily and vermouth in Italy’s north — it is this variety that is being reduced.

Note that the relative proportion of Sicily’s DOC and IGT designations has changed. The IGT designation was not much used before 2012 — this simply refers to wine from the grapes of a particular geographical area, rather than any particular wine style. In 2017, a lot of vineyards used for IGT wine were upgraded to DOC status, which indicates an interest in now using those grapes for a designated wine style. Indeed, the most popular IGT name is simply Terre Siciliane, indicating nothing more than that the grapes came from Sicily.

The following map will give you a (very) rough idea of where most of the DOC areas are located. The central upland areas of the island are used for grazing, but the coastal hills are popular gape-growing locations. The only relatively flattish area is in the south-west, which is also where most of the bulk-wine grapes originate.

If we now look at the changes in vineyard area through time for each of the DOC regions, we can see a fair bit of movement, although most of it is up and down, rather than consistently up or consistently down. The Sicilians are still trying to work out how best to market their wines, in terms of names.

The Marsala designation is the flattish area referred to above, with the DOC part currently occupying 9.2% of Sicily’s total vineyard area. The region has a checkered history, to put it mildly. The fortified wines have a lot of similarity to sherry, for good (and obvious) historical reason; and like sherry, the modern world has little idea of what to do with this collection of wine styles. At their best they can be superb, but they are rarely at their best; and they are usually sold as the cheapest possible aperitifs. Marco De Bartoli was the champion of tying to revive traditional Marsala wine-making, and his artisanal wines have had a lot of influence.

Interestingly, one of his best-known wines, Vecchio Samperi, cannot be marketed as DOC Marsala because it is not actually fortified, but achieves its high alcohol content naturally during solera aging. This is the irony of the DOC concept — even the best wines cannot use the style name if they don’t match the wine-making definition.

Moving on, the wines from around Mount Etna are the ones that have attracted most of the media attention over the past 15 years, and with ample justification. The vineyard area has increased 187% since 2011, and is now even challenging Marsala as Sicily’s biggest area. However, once again we meet a limitation of the DOC system. Some of the better vineyards, especially at the highest altitudes, are outside the defined DOC boundary, and so their wines cannot currently be labeled with the DOC Etna banner. This will presumably be corrected officially.

The Etna reds are the best known, being made from Nerello Mascalese and Nerello cappuccio. Oddly, these varieties make uninteresting wine almost everywhere else except near Etna, which adds to their caché (the neighboring DOC Faro is also made from these varieties; see Unlikely greatness: Palari Faro). Note that to meet the DOC Etna Rosso designation the wine is usually made from both grape types; otherwise the wine will likely be released under the IGT Sicilia banner. The white wines can be made from a number of varieties, although Carricante is required for the DOC Etna Bianco label (minimum 60% for the regular stuff, but 80% for the Superiore label).

To look at the other DOC regions, we need to edit the graph to exclude the above two areas; and the result is shown in the final graph.

Pantelleria is a small island off the south-west coast of Sicily; indeed it is actually closer to Africa than to Sicily. It specializes in sweet wines made by the passito (air-dried) method; and these can rival those of any similar wine-making region. It looks like it is doing well viticulturally (8% increase in vineyards since 2011). However, it is an unusual DOC, because the name does not mandate that the wine must be made locally (on the island). This is because most of the wine is actually made by larger companies elsewhere in Sicily. This makes it very hard for the locals to make any headway in the market, the way Marco De Bartoli did for Marsala, by producing interesting artisanal wines.

As mentioned, Cerasuolo di Vittoria is the only DOCG in Sicily. It has experienced a slow decline, now having only 75% of its 2014 vineyard area. The red wine is a unique blend of Nero d’Avola and Frappato grapes; and both of these are often also released as varietal wines on their own, under the Vittoria DOC banner. Indeed, Nero d’Avola is often treated as Sicily’s most important indigenous grape variety, so that its wines are likely to be the ones most commonly encountered.

Three other (smaller) DOCs have had their ups and downs (Alcamo, Menfi, Salaparuta), which may not bode well for their future. Most of the others have remained fairly constant, with only small vineyard areas. None of these DOCs are well known, even among Sicily aficionados.

You can find out more about these regions, and their varieties, at the Italian Wine Central page about Sicilia.

---

Footnote

Today is the 4th anniversary of this blog.

Europe's vineyards move further north

So, what do you know, I am getting a local vineyard, here in Uppsala, Sweden. Well, actually, it is 13 km (8 miles) away in a straight line, but that is a lot closer than Blaxsta Gård vineyard, which is 110 km (70 miles) south of me.

The importance of this, for people other than myself, is that Blaxsta Gård is currently one of the most northerly commercial vineyards in Europe (see my post Climate change and the most northerly vineyards in Europe). In that previous post, I noted that Finland’s most northerly vineyard does not make commercial wine from grapes, whereas Norway’s does do so. Now, Sweden has a vineyard at that same same latitude, almost 60° N, that intends to release commercial wines (ie. not made from other fruits).

This news was reported last week in my local newspaper, Upsala Nya Tidning, from which the following text is translated — the original report is no longer online. It was then summarized in various other national media, whose (Swedish) reports are mostly still online.

Starting a winery in Ärna

Is it possible to grow grapes in Uppsala?

“Yes”, says Länna Bruk Beverages, which, together with entrepreneur Asterios Ziakoulis, is currently planting 1,250 vines at Ärna.

In the past, Länna Bruk Beverages has made itself known for its wine production at the Länna Bruk facility, where they use imported grapes from their own farm in Greece. Now they are expanding the business with locally grown grapes, and thus become the first commercial grape-grower in Uppsala.

“It feels really exciting using local produce. We will be the first vineyard in Uppland”, says Victor Rydén, who is one of five founders of the company.

What reactions have you had?

“We haven't trumpeted this yet, so it’s mostly those closest who know about it. But we hope that it will be appreciated, especially in times like these when many demand locally produced products.”

The area, which has been named Asterio’s Vineyard, is located just after the Garrison in Ärna, and is about half a hectare.

“We started preparing the soil in April, and got the vines home a month ago, which we have now started planting. The varieties we will grow are Solaris (white grape) and Rondo (red grape). Initially, there will be 1,000 vines of Solaris and 250 of Rondo”, says Victor Rydén.

Why did you choose this particular place?

“We think it fits well, as it is a sunny position, and is a little protected with a forest area around. It forms a kind of microclimate that we think is suitable for viticulture.”

What types of wines are you planning to produce?

“We haven't really decided yet, but sparkling wine feels exciting, I must say.”

The plan is for the first wines to be available for sale at Systembolaget [the national liquor chain] and restaurants in four to five years.

“Now, the focus is on doing good preliminary work, so that the rows establish themselves properly, and to create good conditions that will produce results later on. If this goes well, we may plant more vines in the vineyard in the future.”

Comments

The vineyard is not particularly romantic. It is next to a main road, with constant traffic, and with a car-trailer warehouse facility next door and a military airfield across the road. The vines are at the base of a small west-facing hill, where a patch of forest has been cleared, and the land partially leveled, including removal of the glacial rocks. If the cold turns out to be a problem, they may have been better off moving further up the hill, so that the cold air can drain away, reducing the risks of frosts in early spring.

How do Covid-19 lock-downs affect wine blog readership?

In short, negatively.

I have written once before about the Covid-19 pandemic (There seems to be a lot of public misunderstanding about the coronavirus). Most of what I said then is still true now, in hindsight.

However, there are number of quite significant things that have become obvious since then, with hindsight. The extent to which many people are asymptomatic is perhaps the biggest thing, because these people are unknowingly spreading the virus (SARS-CoV-2) to others. This is perhaps the main reason why we have a pandemic rather than a simple outbreak (such as with annual flu hot-spots) — it is estimated that anything up to 85% of cases (virus infections) have gone unreported (as the disease) in some countries.

This is an important point, given that a number of places are now starting to ease their quarantine restrictions, popularly known as lock-downs or shut-downs. These lock-downs have had very variable success at decreasing the rate of spread of the virus. For example, comparing countries near my home, they seem to have worked well in Norway and Finland, but much less well in the United Kingdom. Indeed, the UK has a worse infection rate than we have here in Sweden, where the quarantine strategies are voluntary rather than mandatory. The USA, of course, has an even worse infection rate than the UK.

The specialists are all warning of a resurgence of infections, as the successfully quarantined people (ie. never infected) come out from behind their locked doors and meet infectious situations (ie. people and places with the virus). This usually happens with infectious diseases, and so there is no reason to think it won’t happen this time, as well. It seems that people retain the virus in their bodies for anything up to 4-5 weeks after infection, rather than merely the 10 days or so during which they have disease symptoms.

This means that the virus is still circulating in our environment, even though many people are now immune (ie. they got the virus, and now have produced antibodies to it). This is why testing of asymptomatic people is seen as a key to our future response to the pandemic (for a wine-related report, see Coronavirus: asymptomatic testing for vineyard where worker tested positive).

Blog readership

Anyway, it is time to consider something that I have not seen reported, as yet, by bloggers. I keep a bit of an eye on the readership of my various blog posts, and it has been obvious that the lock-downs had a quite quick effect on the weekly number of page-views of my blog. If we exclude the possibility that (i) I suddenly started writing boring posts (which cannot be excluded completely), or that (ii) people are too busy reading about the economic, social and biological effects of viruses to have much time for wine blogs (which seems unlikely), or (iii) many of my readers have become ill (which would be very sad), then we might conclude that the drop in blog readership is due to changed social behavior by some of my previous readers.

Overall blog readership is shown in the first graph, which simply counts the total number of page-views for each of the past 7 months. The April readership is 78% of the average for the prior months. This is not too bad.

However, the most obvious effect is on the readership of individual posts. Most of my blog readers access each post on the day it is posted. Only a few of the posts continue to attract new readers thereafter. So, a graph of the page-views for each post since the beginning of the year is very revealing about weekly readership. This analysis provides data for 10 pre-virus posts and 8 post-virus posts, if we exclude the post that was actually about the virus itself (on March 23rd), rather than about wine.

If we compare the pre- and post-virus posts (next graph), then the readership of the latter is only 35% of the former, on average. This is a pretty serious drop in readership, as two-thirds of my regular readers have disappeared into the æther. (Mind you, this is slightly less than the estimated four-fifths drop in champagne sales.)

This dip among readers started during the first week of March, which does coincide with the first global effects of the coronavirus. Although lock-downs in the USA were not fully enforced until the end of March (except in North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming), most things started much earlier. The World Health Organization declared a worldwide pandemic on 11th March; and even the tardy United Kingdom started their lock-down 12 days later. Moreover, the USA started implementing stay-at-home recommendations during the same week as the WHO declaration. American restaurant reservations took a dive on 9th March, although New York started its decline 10 days earlier (How coronavirus is devastating the restaurant business); and hourly jobs posted on Snagajob actually started dropping from March 5 (Hourly job market update: categories where jobs are growing, and where they are gone).

The immediate cause of the drop in readership may well be a combination of reduced work-based access to computers, as well as a lack of work-based activity of any sort. The USA officially had 15% unemployment back in April, with a “currently-not-employed” level higher than that; and Los Angeles now reports a 24% unemployment level, which has not been seen since The Great Depression (24.9% in 1933).

The pandemic has certainly been disruptive for most parts of the wine industry, and the hospitality business in general. Sadly, this is likely to continue, because most current media surveys indicate that people are not going to be returning to restaurants and bars in a hurry. More to the point, the anticipated ongoing customer-distancing (quarantine) requirements are not going to be economically viable in an industry that usually requires 80% capacity just to break even,

If nothing else, with a slow return to something closer to normality, it will be a relief to start reading some wine-related writing that isn’t about the depressing effects of Covid-19.

---

Footnote

The biggest wine-related effect of the pandemic on me, personally, has been my inability to get the wines I want. I have mentioned in previous posts that the wines of usual interest come as part of the “occasional assortment”, which has releases every couple of weeks, as they come in small supply (Wine monopolies, and the availability of wine). I usually have to order these wines, for delivery to my local store, because my town is poorly serviced in the shops (My annoyances with my alcohol monopoly). Well, this is the only service that Systembolaget has changed — they have cancelled order delivery of these particular wines, and these wines only. If the wine is not in your local store, then tough. So, I have not bought much wine lately, apparently unlike most of the rest of the world. How ironic!

The Most Admired Wine Brands are very different this year

I have written before about The World’s Most Admired Wine Brands (What is a "most admired" wine brand?). I noted that there has been a lot of variation in the list from year to year, and that “only the top three brands have shown any consistency at all — these are Torres (from Spain), Concha y Toro (from Chile), and Penfolds (from Australia).”

Well that all changed this year, the 10th such list, with a selection that looks very little like any previous one. This fact seems to have gone almost un-noticed in the wine world, possibly due to the current pandemic that is causing global disruption. There has been no official award ceremony, as yet (it was originally scheduled for March 15), nor much reaction from the successful wineries. Well, that does not stop me from making a few comments here.

What is a “most admired” wine brand?

Each year since 2011, the April edition of Drinks International magazine has contained a supplement with a survey called The World’s Most Admired Wine Brands. A group of more than 200 people are asked to vote for the wine brands they "most admire" based on the criteria that each brand should:

• be of consistent and / or improving quality
• reflect its region or country
• be well marketed and packaged
• respond to the needs and tastes of the target audience
• have broad appeal among wine consumers.

The people polled are drawn from “a broad spectrum of the global wine community”, which apparently includes: masters of wine, sommeliers, commercial wine buyers, wine importers and retailers, wine journalists, wine consultants and analysts, wine educators, and other wine professionals. These people are asked for three choices of wine brand. They are also provided with a list of previous winners, including “a list of more than 80 well-known brands and producers, but as usual we also encourage the option of free choices”.

The new list

This brings us to the 2020 list, which is much different to previous ones.

First, 15 of the wine brands are new to the list, in the sense that they have never appeared in any previous year. In addition, one brand (Ramon Bilbao, from Spain) has appeared only once before, and Gallo (from the USA) has appeared twice. Most of the others, however, are regulars.

Surprisingly, the top-ranked brand is new (Catena Zapata, from Argentina; pictured above), which has never happened before (except the first year!) — it normally takes a couple of years to work upwards to the top echelon. Furthermore, two out the top four are actually new (the other is 19 Crimes, from Australia). This is quite a high turnover at the top. (Note: Symington is also listed as new this year, but it owns Dow's Port and Graham's Port, both of which have each appeared in two previous lists.)

So, there are only nine (out of 50) brands that have appeared in all ten lists:

• Campo Viejo (Spain)
• Château Cheval Blanc (France)
• Château Pétrus (France)
• Cloudy Bay (New Zealand)
• Concha y Toro (Chile)
• Michel Chapoutier (France)
• Penfolds (Australia)
• Torres (Spain)
• Vega Sicilia (Spain)

These are presumably the most admired brands, long-term. Until this year, Torres was ranked either 1st or 2nd each year, but it has now dropped to 3rd.

There are also 15 brands that have appeared in all but one of the lists. However, in keeping with the current regime change, six of these were dropped from the 2020 list (ie. they had appeared in every previous list). Moreover, four of these newly dropped brands are famous Bordeaux chateaux: Château Haut-Brion, Château Lafite-Rothschild, Château Margaux, and Château Mouton-Rothschild. This is, indeed, a remarkable turn-around for the world’s best-known wine region, amid falling national and international sales.

This leads to the obvious question: why has “admiration” changed so much in the past 12 months? Admiration is admitted to be an intangible thing, but there seems to be some current volatility. However, just to emphasize the change, it has recently been noted that Argentina’s Bodega Catena Zapata reports best vintage in a decade — when you’re hot, you’re hot.