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“ Si pi San Michele la racina è comu lu mele, pi San Martinu ogni mustu addiventa vinu ”.

In Sicily, St. Martin ‘s Day marks the end of the Sicilian summer, which often lasts until the first fortnight of November. On that occasion, the new vintage of wine is enjoyed.

In a chronicle of the Statute of Palermo dated 12 November 1876, the use of Moscato , ritual biscuits and turkey on the tables of notables is recorded.

Martino has been defined as the patron saint of the “connoisseurs of good drink” who crowded the “taverns” of Sicilian cities, especially in Palermo where during solemn banquets, in addition to turkey, cooked vegetables such as “vruocculi” and hard-boiled eggs were enjoyed.
At the end of the meal, “ u viscottu i San Martinu abbagnatu nn’o Muscatu ” (the San Martino biscuit soaked in Moscato wine) was never missing.

This biscuit was and still is prepared today with flour mixed with milk and anise seeds, which give the preparation a particular and unmistakable aroma.

There are two versions of this Sicilian biscuit, one embellished with sugar sprinkles and flowers, filled with cream or jam and another simple one also called “ tricotto ” because it is cooked three times, in the past given to children during teething.

Marsala, the name of a city and a wine inextricably linked by so much history.

Marsala, a city-territory made of municipalities and rural areas, welcomes you with its ancient culture.

Marsala, a wine born almost by chance, first known as an English wine and then becoming famous worldwide with the name of the city that produces it. In short, an inseparable pairing: Marsala city-region and Marsala wine.

Marsala, a seaside town that has yielded Punic wrecks , Phoenician artefacts , and Roman ships , and then… a town of cultivated land by skilled farmers who, following in the footsteps of English entrepreneurs, changed the face of these west-facing lands by implementing their vine-growing techniques, a tradition that has always been present in this corner of Sicily.

Marsala, the city of wind, which yesterday, in communion with the sea, allowed the spread of barrel-produced wine to many towns, and which today allows the city to be the undisputed capital of windsurfing, practiced almost all year round in the waters of the Stagnone lagoon overlooking the historic Grillo grape vineyards and the salt pans with their unique sunsets .

Marsala, city of tuff quarries, typical construction material for houses and cellars and then a thousand other faces because finally Marsala is the city of ” Garibaldi’s Thousand ” to whom a type of Marsala wine called “ Garibaldi Dolce ” (GD) was dedicated after having appreciated him during his second visit to the city in 1862 when from a balcony of the Grignani palace in Porta Nuova he thundered “ O Roma o Morte ”.

John Woodhouse , the son of a Liverpool shopkeeper, is credited with creating the typical wine that bears the name of the city of Marsala.

It was 1773 when this English merchant, looking for sodium salsula from which to extract soda ash for the production of glass and soap in England, came across a wine in a tavern that reminded him of the Sherry and Madeira popular in the Iberian Peninsula.

The intuition was great: transport Sicilian wine blended with 2 percent alcohol to England via sea transport, which took thirty to forty days.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, many English people moved to Marsala and gave an unprecedented boost to the development of agriculture linked to the area’s wine industry.

In England it acquired such renown that the English government ordered that the Mediterranean fleet, under the command of Admiral Horatio Nelson , be supplied with it.

A contract was thus drawn up between Woodhouse and Admiral Nelson for the supply of 500 pipes per year to English ships sailing in the Mediterranean.

At that time, vine cultivation was not widespread in the Marsala area, as olive and sumac cultivation was simpler and more profitable. The peasantry was very poor, and Woodhouse felt the need to transform the countryside’s agricultural economy.

He then began to advance capital to farmers in order to encourage the planting of vineyards, with the condition, however, that they would supply him with grapes and wine at the price he himself would establish at harvest time.

This particular contract between the merchant and the wine producer was called “ Mustu obbligatu ”.

However, John Woodhouse was not the only Englishman to be interested in Sicilian products; in fact, there were many English merchants who traded with Sicily at the beginning of the 19th century.

A prominent place also belongs to Benjamin Ingham , who used his capital to support the development of the wine industry in Marsala.

Ingham deserves credit for having improved the quality of the wine by introducing modern winemaking technology and for having innovated the sales network by relying on qualified sales agents not only in Europe but also in America , thus promoting exports to the United States , Brazil and Oceania .

Over time, the English entrepreneurial model began to attract Marsala landowners and proprietors, who began producing and selling their products. Among these was the Vinci Winery, founded in 1947.

The grape harvest has ancient origins, and the discovery of organic residues in jars found in Sicily has led to the belief that wine production in this region is among the oldest in the world, dating back at least six thousand years.

The ancient Romans dedicated a festival to the grape harvest , the “ Vinalia rustica ”, celebrated on August 19th , and this is why even today in the collective imagination the word “ grape harvest ” brings to mind the idea of ​​a celebration.

In a not too distant past, after having established the date of the beginning of the grape harvest , generally no earlier than September 8th, when the wives of the farmers on the southern side of the city-territory of Marsala, on the day dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, brought baskets full of grapes to church for blessing so that the year would be good.

Preparations for the grape harvest involved everyone, regardless of age or gender.

The boys helped the adults clean the containers for harvesting the grapes “ cartedde ”, and put away the tools, scissors, funnels and buckets.

At dawn, men and women with the “ cartedde ” and boys with the “ panareddi ” went to the countryside to pick the grapes.

Once the baskets were full, they were placed at the edges of the rows where the “ carricaturi ” emptied them into the “ tineddi ” (oval wooden containers corresponding to half a barrel) which were placed in the centre of the “ carretto ” ( typical Sicilian cart ).

When the “ tineddo ” was full, the grapes were unloaded onto the “ paramento ” ( palmento ) connected to the “ scarricatura ” (openings on the palmento to allow the grapes to descend from the carts).

Then came the “ pigiatura ”: barefoot men with large boots who, holding on to ropes hanging from the ceiling, crushed the grapes, keeping time.

At a certain point, the first pressing of the “ free-run must ” began to flow from the “ well ” connected to the palmento and it was joy for everyone.

In the meantime, the remains of the crushed grapes were placed inside the “ coffe ” (containers made of woven vegetable fibres) which were pressed, first in the “ viti ” ( presses ) placed one on top of the other (about ten coffe ) and, then, from the 1900s in the “ torchiu ” ( press ) until only the dry residues remained: the “ vinazzu ” which was kept in the open air and gradually given to domestic animals.

On grape harvest days, meals were eaten among the rows or in the atrium of the manor house called “ bagghiu ”.

The bread was accompanied with salted sardines or with olives and tomatoes.

The hot meal was eaten in the evening at home: the women returned from the grape harvest early or sometimes they took turns staying at home to prepare dinner and the men, after having washed themselves in the ” tubs ” with water from the well, they gathered to consume the home-made dry pasta “ lasagni or tagghiarini , gnocculi , busiati or maccarruna ”.

The pasta, seasoned with tomato sauce, cooked with onion and garlic browned in oil and basil, was poured into a wooden container called “ maidda ” which was placed in the centre of the table and everyone could help themselves as they liked.

The second course was meat-based, usually home-raised chicken or minced meatballs, sometimes grilled sardines.

After dinner, despite being tired, everyone spent some time under a large carob tree with jokes, pawn games and serenades, some of them playing the “ fiscalettu ” (a reed flute).

The families: Alagna , Angileri and Caruso of the CANTINE VINCI began to organize the grape harvest already at the end of August with the preparation of presses , vats , pumps , first carts and then trucks , baskets and finally scissors .

The women stayed at home to pluck chickens and prepare the tomato sauce that would be used to prepare dinner for the “graper” workers coming from the more inland areas of Sicily who would have enjoyed the meal washed down with a good, high-proof wine.

Every now and then, busy with their tomato preserves, they invoked God’s will, praying that it would not rain and make the harvest difficult and long.

There was a festive atmosphere and even the children took every opportunity to play with the grapes, loading them onto their trucks, imitating the adults.

The must then passed from the palmento to the barrels where it fermented for a long period awaiting San Martino when ” Every must became wine ” and the fateful moment of tasting arrived which involved everyone.

The head of the family poured the new wine from the barrel into the glass, observed its color, smelled its aroma and finally tasted it.

Then other members of the family also expressed their opinions on the color, the aroma and the taste, demonstrating that a wine is the union of all the generations that cultivate a vineyard.