Sicily Wine Tasting Tours

Sicily makes wine in four places that matter to a visitor, and they are far enough apart that you will realistically taste in one of them, maybe two. The tours compared on this site run from a $15 cellar tasting in Marsala to a $325 per person private day on Etna, and the price gap says less about quality than about how far somebody drives you and how much food arrives with the glass. Here is what each region actually pours, how it is visited, and which of our category pages to open next.

Etna: volcanic wines, and the most tours

The east side of the island has the biggest choice of bookable wine days by a wide margin, because Etna is where the tour operators are. The appellation is Sicily’s oldest, made a DOC in 1968, and the vines run from roughly 400 metres up past 1,000 on black, free-draining lava soil. Etna Rosso is built on Nerello Mascalese, which pours much paler than its structure suggests, and Etna Bianco on Carricante, a high-acid white that keeps its nerve in a Sicilian summer. Nearly every visitable estate sits on the north slope around Linguaglossa, Randazzo and Castiglione di Sicilia, which is why so many tours leave from Taormina, an hour away, and why Catania departures either cross to the north side or combine the volcano’s craters with a winery lunch.

The formats: a five-hour half-day tasting from Taormina like the guided Etna wine tasting half-day tour, the most reviewed Etna wine tour on the market (our breakdown); a cellar-door tasting you reach yourself, such as the Mount Etna winery tour and tasting at Linguaglossa (breakdown); and the food-led days, of which our featured Etna food and wine tasting tour from Taormina is the best reviewed (breakdown). The full set, north slope versus south, is on the Etna wine tours page.

Marsala: fortified wine and the western coast

Marsala is the historic one. The fortified wine that made the town’s name was shipped to England from the 1770s, Florio built its cellars in 1833, and the DOC followed Etna’s by a few months in 1969. The visit is a cellar visit in the literal sense: long, cool halls of old casks, then a flight that usually opens with a dry white from Grillo or Catarratto and ends with the fortified wines themselves, dry through sweet. It is also the cheapest wine region on the island to taste in. The organic winery tour and tasting in Marsala is the lowest price on this site (breakdown), and the Florio winery tour with food-paired tastings is the one most people mean when they say “Marsala winery” (breakdown). The catch is transport: Marsala is a two-hour drive from Palermo, so most visitors either base in Trapani or Marsala for a night or take a day trip from Palermo that bundles Erice and the salt pans. Compare the region on Marsala wine tours and the individual cellars on Marsala winery tours.

Noto and Avola: Nero d’Avola at the source

The south-eastern corner between Syracuse, Noto and the fishing village of Marzamemi is where Nero d’Avola takes its name, and where the grape is tasted as a single-varietal red rather than as a blending partner. The estates are small and mostly family-run, the tastings come with generous Sicilian plates, and the day usually pairs a winery with the baroque town of Noto itself. Two sensible starting points: the Val di Noto wine tour and tasting at Marzamemi (breakdown) and the guided wine tasting in the Val di Noto (breakdown). Both are reachable from Syracuse in under an hour, which makes wine tours from Syracuse the natural base page, with Noto wine tours for the place and Nero d’Avola wine tours for the grape.

Vittoria and Ragusa: Cerasuolo, Sicily’s only DOCG

Inland from Ragusa, around the town of Vittoria, is the one Sicilian wine with DOCG status: Cerasuolo di Vittoria, a cherry-red blend of Nero d’Avola with the lighter, fragrant Frappato, promoted to DOCG in 2005. The area has fewer bookable tours than Etna or Marsala, but what exists is good value and very food-led, such as the winery tour with wine and local food tasting near Ragusa (breakdown). Book it if you are already staying in Ragusa, Modica or Scicli; it is a long detour from anywhere else.

Choosing between them

If you have no car, pick the region nearest your hotel and take a tour with pick-up. If you do have a car and a sober driver, the cellar-door tastings cost a third of the guided days because you are paying for the wine rather than the minibus. If the wine itself is the reason you came, Etna has the most to compare and Marsala the most history. The which Sicily wine tour is right for you guide walks through the choice tour by tour, the price guide explains what each step up the ladder buys, and the best wine tours in Sicily page ranks the shortlist. Otherwise, check availability for your dates: the small-group departures fill first in September and October, during and just after the harvest.