One of our recent Italian trips confirmed to us that Marsala, in far western Sicily is one of our favourite wine regions in Europe at the moment, with a handful of young producers doing exciting things with very old vineyards that have all but been forgotten after the world moved on from the famous dessert wine.
Manuela and Gaia from Midia are one of the producers restoring the historic pre-British vineyards of the area and returning to a tradition of excellent, spicy, salty, dry tables wines from Grillo among other varieties.

Manuela Rendina is a Roman, who in 2018 moved to Sicily to do a vintage with the influential Marsalese enologist and winemaker Vincenzo Angileri of Viteadovest. She ended up staying for 3 vintages and beginning to make wine in 2020 in his cellar with her partner, Sicilian born Gaia Barbagallo.
The abundance of amazing old vineyards available for pennies (Marsala is the most heavily planted wine region in the EU) meant that she was able to obtain fruit from the most famous sites and eventually to lease her own block of vines, a parcel of Grillo on a vast ancient seabed, covered by sand that blows from Africa and speckled with limestone and marine fossils. This is an incredible place to grow wine and the Grillo grapes which were once harvested at 16% for Marsala, when picked at 12% yield an amazingly fresh and saline palate, one of our favourite things to drink with or without food.