Sicily
Est. 1983 
30 wines 
Tastings
Tours
Booking required 
Wine area
Western Sicily and Trapani
Marsala flatlands and the white-grape heartland for Grillo, Catarratto and Inzolia.
Donnafugata
Donnafugata works five Sicilian estates from a single family base in Marsala. It joins Contessa Entellina in the Belice valley with vineyards on Pantelleria, on Etna and in the Cerasuolo di Vittoria zone at Acate. Giacomo and Gabriella Rallo founded it in 1983 on four generations of Marsala wine trading. Their children Antonio and José lead it today, and the historic Marsala cellars still take visitors. Its iconic wines, from Ben Ryè to Mille e una Notte, set the modern reference for Sicilian fine wine.
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Wines from Donnafugata
About Donnafugata
Giacomo Rallo and his wife Gabriella Anca Rallo founded Donnafugata in 1983. They built on a Marsala wine-trading family with four generations of fortified-wine craft behind it. The aim was to point that heritage at dry Sicilian wines. These had to stand on the world stage without leaning on the Marsala name. The historic baglio cellars at Via S. Lipari became the headquarters, and they remain the physical centre of the estate today.
The Rallo family runs the company across five terroirs. Contessa Entellina, in the Belice valley between Palermo and Trapani, anchors the Bordeaux-style reds Mille e una Notte and Tancredi, alongside the Anthìlia and Sursur whites. The Pantelleria estate at Khamma works terraced Zibibbo for the Passito di Pantelleria DOC Ben Ryè and the dry Lighea. Its plots include a century-old ungrafted vineyard, replanted in 1999 from phylloxera-survivor vines. Acate, in the Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG zone, makes Floramundi and the Frappato-led Bell'Assai. The Randazzo estate on the northern slope of Etna delivers the Sul Vulcano Bianco and Rosso, both Etna DOC. The Marsala baglio remains the visitor cellar and the ageing site for the wider range.
The house puts the character of each single terroir ahead of volume. Ben Ryè has become the world benchmark for Passito di Pantelleria. Mille e una Notte sits among the most ageworthy Sicilian reds of the past two decades. Sul Vulcano showed early on what an outsider Etna estate could deliver from contrada-driven growing. The Sicily-wide Anthìlia and Sursur whites carry the everyday-bottle weight of the range.
Sustainability work runs in parallel. The estate joined the SOStain Sicilia Foundation in 2021. In 2022 it mapped its work against nine UN Sustainable Development Goals. In 2023 it became the first wine producer worldwide to adopt the Nomacorc Ocean closure, made from recycled coastal plastic. Its first formal Sustainability Report followed in 2025. In the vineyards the team uses minimum tillage, mechanical weeding, organic fertilisation and integrated pest management across all five estates.
Antonio and José Rallo, children of the founders, lead the company today. Gabriella was a founding member of Le Donne del Vino and a pioneer of Sicilian feminine viticulture. That role still shapes the estate's character. It shows in the trademark labels, which turn Sicilian colour and storytelling into the bottle range.
Plate I · SICILY
Donnafugata on the Sicily wine atlas
Winery
Donnafugata
Marsala, Trapani · Western Sicily and Trapani
Denominations Produced
Grapes Used
Visit & Experiences
3 bookable experiences at Donnafugata
3 tastings, checked by our editors. From €40.
Tasting
Volcanic Wines, Pantelleria
60 minutes
From €40
Sixty-minute tasting at the Pantelleria cellar focused on the volcanic wines of the island, including the Passito di Pantelleria DOC Ben Ryè and the dry Zibibbo Lighea.
Book this tasting
on visit.donnafugata.it
Tasting
La Tonnara, Marsala
90 minutes
From €55
Ninety-minute tasting in the historic Marsala baglio, weaving the Donnafugata range into the island's tuna-fishing heritage.
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on visit.donnafugata.it
Food Pairing
Donna Vittoria, Acate
100 minutes
From €65
One-hundred-minute gourmet experience at the Vittoria estate with refined food pairings drawn from the Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG zone.
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on visit.donnafugata.it
Not seeing the estate you want? Estates without an online listing are reachable directly, and their phone and email are in Plan your visit.
Plan your visit
Via S. Lipari, 18, 91025 Marsala, Trapani (Sicilia)
What Donnafugata makes
Donnafugata's current bottle selection is led by Sicilia DOC. The clearest grape signal comes from Nero d'Avola and Nerello Mascalese.
Common questions
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Donnafugata has its headquarters in Marsala, in the Trapani province of western Sicily. Four further working estates sit at Contessa Entellina in the Belice valley, on the volcanic island of Pantelleria, on Etna, and in Acate within the Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG zone.
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