Carlo Pellegrino

This intense and long-lasting Marsala matures for 5 years according to the soleras method in barrels of 50-100 hl. These lie on top of each other, as in sherry production, and the contents of the different barrels and vintages sorted by tiers are regularly blended together. In this way, the older Marsala gives the younger one its softness and maturity, while the younger portion adds freshness and fruitiness.

Vergine – this is not a style statement, this is a philosophy. No cooked must, no sweetening, no flavour additives. Just wine, alcohol and the quiet labour of time in oak wood. What ends up in the bottle is the result of radical reduction – and therein lies the greatness of this category. The 2000 vintage – then still young in the barrels of Pellegrino's historic winery in the heart of Marsala – spent more than a decade in large oak barrels of between 30 and 80 hectolitres. No haste, no intervention. The oxidation process is slow, controlled and precise. Grillo, Catarratto and Inzolia from the westernmost tip of Sicily – soils over which the salt of the nearby Stagnone lagoon still lingers in the air.

The year is 1773: John Woodhouse, an English merchant on his way to Mazara to collect a consignment of soda ash, is forced by a storm into the harbour of Marsala. In a tavern, he samples ‘Perpetuum’ – the local wine, which he describes as having a high alcohol content, similar to Port and Madeira. The idea strikes him immediately: if a little spirit were added to this wine, it would survive the long sea voyage to England. It is that first sip that marks the beginning of a chapter in wine history.