2023 Vintage: High Performance and Quality. Identity, Diversity and Territory Win

Palermo, 17th May 2024 – The 2023 vintage was a high-performing grape harvest from a qualitative and organoleptic point of view. Sicilian producers did their best through their know-how, focusing on the varietal richness and diversity of the Sicilian areas, showing their ability to manage complex and challenging climatic situations. Despite the reduction in quantity, with a drop of 3,48% (Total Dop and Igt production) compared to last year, identity, territory, and quality won.

“From this 2023 vintage, we will be drinking red wines with a strong identity, white wines with a complex aromatic profile, native vines increasingly faithful to the territory, and international ones with a new and interesting profile”. This is the assessment made by Mattia Filippi, co-founder of Uva Sapiens, a company that deals with wine consultancy, in his report presented from May 9th to 11th in Cefalù, during the 20th edition of Sicilia en Primeur, the event devoted to the preview of the latest vintage.

The wines obtained from the 2023 grape harvest stand out for their characteristics of essentiality, cleanliness, clarity and definition. The emblem of this is Grillo, which continues to demonstrate its ability to create wines that evolve positively over time, a vine that performs well in quantity reductions and which, in this grape harvest, revealed itself in wines with a broad aromatic spectrum and more evident tropical notes; Catarratto, which is increasingly glocal thanks to its great indigenous values (local) that encounters the characteristics of international taste (global). Nero d’Avola, Frappato, Nerello Mascalese and Perricone are establishing themselves as wines of the future by focusing on a style that combines elegance, versatility and freshness.
The big surprise – according to Mattia Filippi’s report – was the wine produced from the Syrah vine, whose grapes demonstrated resistance to weather and climate conditions and a result which, after the grape harvest, became wines with an acid-sugar balance and excellent ageing.

“Once again, the “Sicilian wine system”, represented by Assovini Sicilia, has teamed up and responded to the difficulties with competence and results. Precisely for this reason, the edition of Sicilia en Primeur 2024 – “Cultivating the Future” – will be remembered for the structure of the 2023 grape harvest characterised by the “Less is More” style – comments Mattia Filippi of Uva Sapiens.

The longest grape harvest in Italy – one hundred days of harvesting – began in the western part of the island during the first ten days of August and ended at the end of October in the vineyards of Etna. “It was a very complex wine-growing year that highlighted some critical issues linked to the particular aggressiveness of downy mildew, but also revealed a very skilled production sector that was able to interpret and enhance the peculiarities of an exceptionally unusual grape harvest,” added Pietro Russo, Master of Wine.

The 2023 grape harvest in Italy will be remembered as the least productive since 1947. Like all central-southern areas of Italy and the southern areas of Europe, Sicily suffered a 31% drop in production compared to last year. As for the other regions, these drops in production are attributable to the unfavourable weather and climate conditions that occurred in the spring period, favouring the spread of downy mildew. “The associated companies of Assovini Sicilia have demonstrated that they know how to manage a challenging situation, such as the last grape harvest, with expertise, know-how and technique. An approach focusing on prevention and prudent and careful management implemented by the producers proved to be successful, as well as a series of agronomic techniques and monitoring activities capable of verifying water stress conditions in advance and being able to intervene promptly”, – comments the president of Assovini Sicilia, Mariangela Cambria.