Marsala Superiore Pellegrino Dry

Region

Sicily, Italy

Producer:

Cantine Pellegrino

Grapes:

Catarratto, Grillo, Damaschino

Wine Description:

This blend of Catarratto, Grillo, Damaschino and Inzolia is made with strictly selected grapes vinified before fermentation is stopped with the addition of eau de vie so sugar levels remain below 40g/L. This “Mistella” is then blended with the best DOC wine and aged at least 2 years in French oak casks. The final wine is fortified to 18% alcohol. With toffee and nutty aromas, this wine has rich dry fruit palate flavors. Passito di Pantelleria Muscat of Alessandria, or Zibibbo, grapes are harvested at the end of August and dried naturally before vinification. The wine shows complex, elegant dried fruit and apricot aromas with beautiful balance.

Producer Description

Cantine Pellegrino is one of Sicily’s most important and prosperous wineries. Today they are one of very few families who can trace their lineage back to the original 19th Century founders of the Marsala trade.

Over the years the Pellegrino family married into the Alagna, Renda, Tumbarello & Bellina families, who today collectively manage the company. Pietro Alanga is Pellegrino’s President and Benedetto Renda its CEO. Recently they welcomed the 6th generation to the family business. In 1880 Paolo Pellegrino, local notary and vine grower, founded his winery in the heart of the city of Marsala on the West coast of Sicily. With the help of his son Carlo, he built the company up from nothing into one of Sicily’s leading Marsala producers. After the death of his father, Carlo took the reigns of the company, assisted by his wife Josephine Despagne, daughter of a famous Sauternes oenologist Oscar Pierre Despagne. Josephine brought with her a wealth of winemaking knowledge and together they continued to build the company. Today the company has 150 hectares of vineyards, and 3 wineries all of which are solar powered. Pellegrino have been instrumental in putting Sicily on the winemaking map, with the family’s Marsala, fine wine and sweet Pantelleria wine, all of which are exported around the world.