Population: 5.500.000
Regional Capital: Palermo
Provinces: Agrigento, Caltanisetta, Catania, Enna, Messina, Ragusa, Siracusa and Trapani
Total vineyards planted: 210.000 hectares
Main red varietals: Cappuccio, Frappato di Vittoria, Nerello Mascalese, Nero D'Avola, and Perticone
Main white varietals: Carricante, Cataratto, Grecanico, Grillo, Inzolia, Malvasia, Moscato and Zibibbo

Sicily is the largest Italian region and the largest island in the Mediterranean sea. Sicily is the most productive wine region and has the most vineyards in Italy; oddly it has the lowest per capita consumption. Almost two-thirds of the wine is white, although its reds are better known on the market. Sicily is perhaps the closest to a perfect wine region in the world. It has plentiful of sun and luminosity, good soil conditions, low rainfall, and high temperature to ripe the grapes. Furthermore, its microclimate may count on vineyards on the hillside and on the mountains, it's not unusual to find vineyards up to 1,000 m. or 2,500 ft. above the sea level. Only 15% of all land is below 100 meter (300 ft.) sea level. In addition it has a wide range of native varietals with an excellent personality. International varietals are also planted and perform very well, particularly Syrah seems to reach perfect growing conditions here. The big cooperatives, which were the major players in the 1960's and 1970's have almost disappeared, thus the wine industry is going though a major transformation that will favour the quality over the quantity.

The Greeks begun the colonization of Sicily 750 BC. Thanks to their wine making knowledge and technique as well as grape varieties Sicily could set the stone for centuries as a wine growing region. Then it was conquered by the Romans that seemed to be more interested in growing grains for their soldiers rather than wine. Sicily has being conquered many times in history, perhaps due the richness of its territory. Arabs, Byzantines, Normans and Francs occupied this land and later on Spanish, Bourbons and Austrians. In the 14th century Palermo had 100,000 inhabitants, it was one of the largest cities in Europe. In 1860 Sicily was liberated by Garibaldi's troops and formed with other regions the Kingdom of Italy.