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A rare appassimento white: Marsala-area Grillo part-dried on the vine gives honeyed peach, dried apricot and candied grapefruit, just off-dry at 13%. From negociant The Wine People; Decanter gave the 2019 90 points. £12.50 at Majestic.
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The Wine People pick their Marsala-area Grillo in several passes, leaving part of the crop to shrivel on the vine, then rest the wine three to four months on fine lees. Expect honeyed tropical fruit with a pithy grapefruit edge: closer to a white take on the Amarone idea than to a classic crisp Grillo.
Straw yellow with gold glints, it opens on the dried-grape signature of this Marsala-area Grillo: pineapple and ripe peach shading into dried apricot, orange peel and a honeyed, nutty edge. The Wine People's own note adds aromatic herbs; Decanter's James Button found waxy orange zest, lemon and honey in the 2019.
Grapefruit
Orange peel
Apricot
Peach
Pineapple
Raisin
Almond
HoneyPlusher than any standard Grillo: candied citrus and honey arrive first, the off-dry core (8.3 g/l residual sugar in the 2019) reading as ripeness against pithy grapefruit acidity. Double drying, on the vine and around 15 days on mats with 10-15% weight loss, plus three to four months on fine lees, builds a waxy, mouth-filling texture at 13%.
Medium-long, narrowing to grapefruit pith and dried apricot with the subtle honey-and-nut fade Button noted in the 2019; fresher than the honeyed attack suggests.
A popular curiosity rather than a purist's Grillo: Vivino drinkers average 3.9 across 2,501 ratings and Majestic buyers 4.8 across 191, praising the value and its fit with spiced food; a vocal minority find the honeyed weight cloying. Drink it young, with sweet-spice on the table, in its first two to three years.
A Majestic exclusive in the UK at £12.50 a bottle, dropping to £11.00 in any mixed six. At that price it carries a 90-point Decanter note for the 2019 and a 3.9 Vivino average across more than 2,500 ratings.
Scored on our six house dimensions: an easy, food-flexible off-dry white from Trento negociant The Wine People, strongest on value at £12.50 and weakest as a cellar candidate.
Judged editorially against UK-retail peers: £12.50, or £11.00 in a Majestic mixed six, buys a double-harvest appassimento white whose 2019 took 90 Decanter points, while straight Sicilia DOC Grillo without the drying regime typically sits at £9 to £12.
An off-dry aromatic white built for sweet-spiced food: the producer pours it with chicken curry and shellfish, and its 8 g/l-scale residual sugar plus grapefruit acidity handles korma to tagine better than most dry whites.
Screwcap, 13%, honeyed tropical fruit and a 4.8 average from 191 Majestic reviews make it an easy first Sicilian white, though its off-dry appassimento style is not the textbook crisp Grillo.
Under £13 and screwcap-sealed with shellfish-to-korma flexibility, though the honeyed off-dry weight makes it a bottle for spiced dinners more than a neutral every-night pour.
An entry-level Sicilia DOC talking point rather than a prestige bottle: it opens a conversation about white Amarone-style winemaking but carries no cellar or icon status.
Built for immediate drinking: tank-raised with three to four months on fine lees, no oak programme, and Decanter's window for the 2019 was just two years.
Scoring is rule-based and deterministic. The model and weightings are documented in our Wine Fit Score methodology.
A compact view of what the Sicilia denomination actually requires, and how this bottle sits inside it. Pulled from the official Italian disciplinare.
2024 was a drought-marked Sicilian season: yields fell around 20%, yet Assovini's harvest report judged quality intact, with north-west Grillo, the Marsala zone this wine comes from, ripening notably riper than average.
A drought-marked Sicilian season: the 2024 crop fell about 20% but Assovini's harvest report judged quality intact, and north-west Grillo, the Marsala zone this bottle draws from, ripened riper than average. Drink it young, by about 2027, while the tropical fruit is freshest.
A drought-marked Sicilian season: the 2024 crop fell about 20% but Assovini's harvest report judged quality intact, and north-west Grillo, the Marsala zone this bottle draws from, ripened riper than average. Drink it young, by about 2027, while the tropical fruit is freshest.
Drink-now / hold guidance reflects general style cues for this wine, not a forecast for a specific bottle. Where vintage-level editorial notes exist, they appear above.
Since the 2017 reservation rule, varietally labelled Grillo can only be bottled as Sicilia DOC, which is why this dried-grape white carries DOC papers rather than a Terre Siciliane IGT label.
Italian wine law sorts bottles into a pyramid. DOCG sits at the top: tightly drawn boundaries, prescribed grapes, mandatory ageing, government tasting before release. DOC is the same idea with looser thresholds. IGT (Indicazione Geografica Tipica) is broader still, requiring only that 85% of the grapes come from the named territory.
Sicilia is in the DOC tier. That is not a quality verdict, it is a description of how much freedom the producer has at vinification and ageing.
Sicilia falls within Sicily, covering Sicily: the whole island, from the Trapani coast in the west to the slopes of Etna in the east.
Wine route
2 days · 8 stops
Open the driveWine route
1 day · 5 stops
Open the driveWine route
3 days · 4 stops
Open the driveWine routes in the zone: Strada del Vino dell'Etna, Strada del Vino Cerasuolo di Vittoria, Strada del Vino Marsala e Pantelleria.
The Wine People pick the Grillo by hand in several passes, leaving part of the crop on the vine until it sheds weight: repeated vineyard passes cost more than one machine sweep.
Bunches twisted on the vine plus around 15 days on drying mats lose 10 to 15% of their weight (Joanna Simon's technical detail), so each bottle needs more grapes than a standard Grillo.
The producer rests the wine on its fine lees for three to four months before bottling: modest cellar time that buys the waxy texture without expensive oak.
The Wine People is a Trento negociant buying Marsala-area fruit rather than farming an estate, which keeps vineyard ownership and estate overheads out of the £12.50 price.
Sold as a Majestic exclusive at £12.50, or £11.00 in a mixed six: the volume-retail route to market trims per-bottle margin against independent-merchant pricing.
At 13% ABV the flat UK duty is £2.67 and VAT adds £2.08 of the £12.50 shelf price, so roughly £4.75 is tax before a drop of wine is paid for.
Dishes that go with this wine
The producer pours it with oysters and chicken curry; Joanna Simon points at tagines and mild curries. The common thread is the wine's touch of residual sugar, 8.3 g/l in the 2019, meeting gentle spice and sweet-savoury food.
The producer's own serving list is chicken curry and Indian food. Korma's coconut and almond sweetness meets the wine's honeyed tropical fruit, and the 8 g/l-scale residual sugar cushions gentle spice in a way a bone-dry Grillo cannot.
Try with: Chicken korma · Chicken tikka masala · Massaman curry · More pairings →
Majestic pours it with Moroccan-spiced rice and Joanna Simon points at tagines: dried apricot in the dish mirrors dried fruit in the glass, and sugar meeting sugar keeps both sides tasting complete.
Try with: Lamb tagine · Chicken biryani · Moroccan couscous
The Wine People list oysters, seafood and shellfish first on their own scheda, and the lees-fed body at 13% carries sweet crab and prawn meat. Aim for richer preparations: Fiona Beckett notes it is not the wine for lean, plain seafood.
Try with: Oysters · Tandoori prawns · Salt and pepper prawns
Joanna Simon calls the acidity pivotal, and that grapefruit-pith cut is what clears butter and cream. Paneer butter masala or a korma's cashew base gets refreshed rather than coated.
Try with: Paneer butter masala · Chicken korma · Roast butternut squash · More pairings →
Joanna Simon's cheese list for this wine runs Comté, aged Gouda and Parmigiano: salt against the wine's 8 g/l-scale sweetness is the classic counterplay, and the nutty finish echoes aged rinds.
Try with: Aged Parmigiano · Comté · Mature Gouda
Vindaloo-level capsaicin magnifies the honeyed weight into exactly the cloying, heavy character the wine's critics describe, and a delicately steamed white fish is flattened by dried-fruit richness. Keep the spice gentle and the dishes generous.
Skip with: Vindaloo · Sichuan hotpot · Steamed sea bass · Pairing guide →
Decanter's drinking window for the 2019 was just two years, and nothing in the make-up argues for holding: screwcap, tank-raised, and only months on lees. Buy the current vintage and drink it within about three years.
Best in the years above; holds without falling over either side.
A short splash decant softens the first-pour edge and opens the aromatics.
Aim for the cooler end on a warm day; warmer end opens up more aromatics.
Built for immediate drinking: tank-raised with three to four months on fine lees, no oak programme, and Decanter's window for the 2019 was just two years.
£12.50 is the lowest tracked offer for the current vintage and we have no signal of further discounting.
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Confidence · HighDrawn from what drinkers consistently report on Vivino and Wine-Searcher, summarised in our own words. A crowd read across many tasters, not a single critic.
Confidence · MediumFrom the official Italian disciplinare for this denomination, cross-checked against the Ministry of Agriculture register.
Confidence · HighOur reading of the price, drawn from the disciplinare, public UK duty rates, and typical landed-cost benchmarks. Not a quote from the producer or a retailer.
Confidence · MediumStyle guidance for this kind of wine at this price point. Treat it as advice, not a forecast for the bottle in your hand.
Confidence · MediumIt is an off-dry Sicilian white made from Grillo grown around Marsala, part-dried to concentrate the juice, and labelled Sicilia DOC. The brand belongs to The Wine People, a negociant house in Trento, and the style borrows the appassimento method better known from Amarone.
It is off-dry rather than sweet: the 2019 vintage carried 8.3 g/l of residual sugar, balanced by grapefruit-pith acidity. Dried grapes give it a honeyed, candied-fruit richness, so it reads riper than a standard dry Grillo, but it is nowhere near a dessert wine.
By drying grapes before fermentation. For this wine some bunches are twisted on the vine from mid-August and others dry on mats for around 15 days, losing 10 to 15% of their weight; the lots then ferment together at 17 to 18C and the wine rests three to four months on fine lees.
Nero Oro is a brand of The Wine People, a Trento-based negociant, with Stefano Girelli as the creative force behind it. The Grillo is bought from growers around Marsala rather than farmed on a single estate, which is why no single winery name appears on the label.
The producer serves it with oysters, shellfish and chicken curry, and its off-dry weight suits sweet-spiced food: kormas, biryanis, tagines and Moroccan-spiced rice. Salty hard cheeses such as aged Gouda or Parmigiano also play well against the honeyed fruit.
£12.50 a bottle at Majestic, dropping to £11.00 a bottle in any mixed six; it is a Majestic exclusive in the UK. The current listed vintage is 2024, at 13% ABV under screwcap.
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