Mamertino di Milazzo DOC

The wine of the Milazzo peninsula and the hills behind Messina, and — by reputation — the wine Julius Caesar served. The denomination was created in 2004 and covers 31 communes, but it is a tiny thing: under a hundred hectares in production, and fewer than a hundred thousand bottles a year.

The Name The Mamertini were Campanian mercenaries who seized Messina in 288 BC and gave their name to the city’s wine. Pliny records Mamertine among the great growths, and it is reported as having been poured at the banquet for Caesar’s third consulship in 46 BC. Sicily has several wines with classical claims; this one has the best documented.

The Terroir The registered file attributes the link to the interaction of hilly orography, a ventilated environment, a clay component in the soils, a mild climate and — unusually, and importantly — a modest monthly and daily temperature range. That last point is the opposite of what most Italian files boast about. This is a narrow strip between the Peloritani mountains and the Tyrrhenian, and the sea holds the temperature steady in both directions; the wines are correspondingly even and unforced rather than dramatic.

Grape Varieties The red is Nero d’Avola with Nocera, which is the local interest. Nocera is a Messinese variety, deeply coloured and very high in acid, nearly extinct by the 1990s and now grown almost nowhere else. The white is Grillo blended with Ansonica — Inzolia under its other name — and Catarratto in both its Lucido and Comune forms. The file requires a minimum of two years’ ageing for the riserva, white as well as red.

The Critical Take Mamertino is a revival rather than a survival, and it is still finding its register. The reds are the reason to pay attention: Nocera gives Nero d’Avola the acidity it lacks, and the resulting wine is fresher and more angular than western Sicilian reds, with a savoury, almost saline finish from the coastal siting. A white riserva with two years behind it is a genuinely unusual proposition in Sicily. The zone’s problem is scale, not quality.

Thirteen Growers An association of producers was formed only in 2019, with thirteen members, working towards a full protective consortium. The average holding is three or four hectares. That is the honest size of this denomination, and it explains both why the wine is hard to find and why the bottles that exist are made with care.

At the Table Messinese cooking: swordfish alla ghiotta, braciole, maccheroni with sardines, capers and aubergine, and aged provola dei Nebrodi. Red at 16–17°C, white at 10–12°C.

Benchmark Producers Vasari and Mimmo Paone, two of the small family estates that make up the denomination.