The last decade or so has been a boom time for Sherry, which has led many wine lovers to view Sicily’s Marsala through an invigorating new lens. After a long time in the wine wilderness, Marsala is now recapturing the respect it enjoyed in its 18th-century heyday when British merchant John Woodhouse introduced it as a worthy alternative to Sherry and Madeira.
Curatolo Arini’s classic, long-aged secco is a Marsala for lovers of the best Amontillados, Palo Cortados, Sercials, and other classic dry styles in the fortified realm. It can be sipped with pleasure before and after a meal, pairing as effortlessly with salty snacks as it does with biscotti and cannoli and countless other desserts. Plus, a single 750ml bottle can carry you through multiple occasions across many weeks. You can sneak a little to cook with, but that’d really be doing this wine a great disservice: sip it slowly, savor every drop, and marvel at how little you paid for such a profound wine experience.
I’ll say it louder for the folks in the back: Long before its production was industrialized and its wines mostly banished to kitchens around the world, Marsala ranked right alongside Sherry, Madeira, and Port as a source of world-class fortified wines. Named for a port town on the west coast of Sicily (its name derived from Arabic for “port of God”), Marsala is no longer what it once was, although there are a few holdouts making authentic, artisanal wines in this historic place. The Curatolo Arini winery, which dates to 1875, is one of them.
The name of the founder, Vito Curatolo Arini, is still on the bottles, and members of the Curatolo family remain in charge here, overseeing one of Marsala’s most historic “houses.” They farm 140 hectares of vineyards, most of them in the Trapani province of Western Sicily, and have enlisted the help of famed consultant enologist Alberto Antonini to oversee production. Like most legacy Marsala houses, they now produce a full range of dry “table wines” from all the classic Marsala-area grapes (including whites such as Grillo, Inzolia, and Catarratto), but they continue to be one of the benchmark producers of the classic fortified styles.
Today’s wine is designated Marsala Superiore Riserva Secco: It’s a dry style aged five years in a combination of large Slavonian oak vats and smaller tonneaux barrels. It is a blend of Grillo, Inzolia, and Catarratto, fermented in stainless steel like a “regular” white wine. It is then fortified with mistela, a mixture of grape brandy and unfermented grape must, which brings the alcohol content to 18% and the residual sugar level to a modest, almost-imperceptible eight grams. This keeps the wine firmly in the “dry” category while adding some pleasing viscosity to the party.
Textured and opulent yet salty and crisp at the same time, Curatolo Arini’s Superiore Secco displays a burnished gold-amber color in the glass, with aromas and flavors of dried figs, golden raisins, chopped almonds, vanilla bean, bergamot, and other Sicilian citruses. Serve it as you might an Amontillado Sherry, or a Sercial Madeira: slightly chilled (55 degrees, i.e. “cellar temp” is recommended) in an all-purpose white wine stem. There’s no need to decant it, and while it would certainly be an excellent nightcap or dessert sipper at the end of an epic meal, I would strongly consider it alongside a “savory” course or even as an apéritif with almonds, cheeses, and some membrillo. Its freshness and sunny wildness will wake up your palate like few wines can, and you can’t help but be mesmerized by its complex mix of sweet/spicy/salty/fruity flavors. It’s a conversation piece and a wine to be sipped slowly. Attached is a pasta preparation that will sing with this wine, in the hope that it makes it onto your dinner table soon. You’re going to love it!
