Inspired by a deep passion for wine, an Italian heritage, and a desire for a land somewhat wilder than his home in southern France, Robert V. Camuto set out to explore Sicily’s emerging wine scene. What he discovered during more than a year of traveling the region, however, was far more than a fascinating wine frontier. 

 

Chronicling his journey through Palermo to Marsala, across the rugged interior of Sicily to the heights of Mount Etna, Camuto captures the personalities and flavors and the traditions and natural riches that have made Italy’s largest and oldest wine region the world traveler’s newest discovery. In the island’s vastly different wines he finds an expression of humanity and nature—and the space where the two merge into something more.

 

Here, amid the wild landscapes, lavish markets, dramatic religious rituals, deliciously contrasting flavors, and astonishing natural warmth of its people, Camuto portrays Sicily at a shining moment in history. He takes readers into the anti-Mafia movement growing in the former mob vineyards around infamous Corleone; tells the stories of some of the island’s most prominent landowning families; and introduces us to film and music celebrities and other foreigners drawn to Sicily’s vineyards. His book takes wine as a powerful metaphor for the independent identity of this mythic land, which has thrown off its legacies of violence, corruption, and poverty to emerge, finally free, with its great soul intact.

“Robert is brilliant, witty, and thorough in describing the true characters of Sicilian wine today, uncovering the very human and heartwarming side to making wine in a wine paradise. . . . Bravo!!”—Shelley Lindgren, partner/wine director of A16 and SPQR restaurants and coauthor of A16: Food + Wine

“Thank goodness the publisher sent me an advance copy so I can get to Camuto’s Sicily before everyone else. Here are the sights and sounds, the smells and tastes, and plenty of hopes and fears from what sounds like an island paradise.”—Kermit Lynch, wine importer and author of Adventures on the Wine Route: a Wine Buyer’s Tour of France