Marco De Bartoli

Since 1978 the family cantina of Marco de Bartoli, based in Marsala on the west coast of Sicilia, is widely regarded as the bastion of fine Marsala. They then diversified across to the island of Pantelleria, to make Passito, & more recently still: developed a range of sapid Sicilian dry white wines, plus a sparkling wine, made from the local Catarratto, Grillo, & Zibibbo varieties.

Scion of two industrial producers, Pellegrino & Mirabella, in 1978 Marco De Bartoli chose the lonely route to quality, deciding to grow & vinify the fruit himself in-house. To re-inforce this message he launched their flagship wine: ‘Vecchio Samperi’, named after the location of their baglio/farm, ‘Samperi’ and first made in 1980, it is a prestigious “Vergine” wine made using the traditional perpetuum/Solera method. It’s an original ‘Marsala’ made without fortification or the adding of ‘mistella’ (caramelised sweetner), perpetually racked to produce a fine, dry, delicate ‘rancio’ style wine.  And since 1986 they have been producing a sweet Passito on the island of Pantelleria, close to Tunisia. Here the family own 8ha of Zibibbo vineyards (Muscat di Alessandria/Canelli) at the contrada/frazione of Bukkuram.

With the ‘mancanza’ of Marco in 2011, figli Renato, Sebastiano, & Giuseppina have jointly assumed the responsibilities, & fine-tuned the range.