16 Value Wines from Italy

New reviews of well-priced reds and whites from the island of Sicily

The warm and sunny island of Sicily, once a hotbed for Marsala and bulk wine, is uprooting its past for a better future, literally. In the last 15 years, vineyard acreage has declined by nearly half, to 285,000 acres today. But despite the decline in acreage, Sicily still turns out about 200 million bottles a year and remains one of Italy’s most prolific wine-producing regions. Quality-minded wineries, including the historic Duca di Salaparuta estate (which has three wines in this report), along with a continuing stream of emerging smaller wineries, are focusing on producing value-driven bottlings of the island’s unique grape varieties.