Sicilian Wines Superstar!

Sicilian Wines Superstar!

We had a great interview/conversation with the award winning wine editor Lucy Shaw of the prestigious “The Drinks Business Magazine” for their extensive feature about the Golden Age of Sicily and its incredible wines. The magazine is one of the leading in the UK for the drink and food trade and it was an honour to be called to say our opinion.
The feature 
is incredibly informative and fascinating to read if you wish to know more about Sicilian wines.

The wine industry is (finally) discovering and falling in love with the wines of Sicily. As Sicilian wine specialists, since 2016 at La Sicilyana we are working hard to introduce our customers to a new world of flavours. So far, we have conquered the palate of so many wine lovers in Scotland and UK.

Lucy dropped a few key questions about the world of Sicilian wines and this is the extract of our conversation. We hope you’ll find it interesting!

“Catania-born, Perthshire-based Laura Raimondi, who founded Sicilian wine specialist La Sicilyana in 2016, believes the likes of Chardonnay, Merlot and Syrah still have a role to play in Sicily as gateway wines that help consumers ease their way into what the island has to offer.

“We don’t want to lose our local identity and forget about our indigenous grapes, but having said that, Chardonnay, Merlot and Syrah still have a future in the international market – some of the best Chardonnay I’ve ever had comes from Sicily, and Castellucci Miano’s Syrah, grown on clay soils on the slopes of the Madonie mountains in northern Sicily, is sensational,” she says.

Raimondi started La Sicilyana as a wine-tasting business, which proved so popular that she grew it into Scotland’s only specialist Sicilian wine importer, opening a bistro in Scone in 2019 serving the wines in her portfolio and classic Sicilian recipes taught to her by her nonna.

At first she was worried her customers would only be interested in Pinot Grigio and Prosecco, but she’s been pleasantly surprised by how willingly the Scots have embraced the wines of her homeland.

“I wanted to bring some Mediterranean sunshine to Scotland and it’s working. We’ve been selling a lot of wine online during the pandemic,” Raimondi reports. She does, however, feel that there is still a lot of work to be donewhen it comes to educating consumers about Sicilian wines.”