Nero Oro Grillo Appassimento
A brand of The Wine People, not an estate
- Grape
- Grillo
- Denomination
- Sicilia DOC
- Region
- Sicily
- ABV
- 13%
A rare dried-grape white: Marsala-area Grillo part-dried on the vine gives honeyed peach, dried apricot and candied grapefruit, just off-dry at 13%. From the merchant house The Wine People; Decanter gave the 2019 90 points. £12.50 at Majestic.
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Where to buy Nero Oro Grillo Appassimento , Sicily
One shop sells this wine in the UK, so there is no price to compare between shops. Each price is the one on its page today, read daily.
No current retailer offer matches that combination.
Stock status is read from each retailer’s page once a day and may lag.
Tasting Nero Oro's dried-grape Grillo
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.
- Tasted by
- ItalianWines editorial
- Tasted on
- 4 August 2026
- Source
- Drinker consensus · confidence Medium
- Typical of Grillo
Straw yellow with gold glints, it opens on the dried-grape signature of this Marsala-area Grillo. Pineapple and ripe peach shade into dried apricot, orange peel and a honeyed, nutty edge. Aromatic herbs run through it, as The Wine People's own note has it. The 2019 showed waxy orange zest, lemon and honey to Decanter's James Button.
Plusher than any standard Grillo. Candied citrus and honey arrive first, and the off-dry core, 8.3 grams of sugar a litre in the 2019, reads as ripeness against pithy grapefruit acidity. The grapes dry twice, on the vine and then around 15 days on mats, losing 10 to 15% of their weight. Add three to four months resting on the yeast and you get a waxy, mouth-filling texture at 13%.
Medium-long, narrowing to grapefruit pith and dried apricot with a subtle honey-and-nut fade; fresher than the honeyed attack suggests.
A popular curiosity rather than a purist's Grillo. A well-liked everyday white, valued for its price and its fit with spiced food, though some find the honeyed weight cloying. Drink it young, with sweet-spice on the table, in its first two to three years.
Where to buy Nero Oro Grillo Appassimento
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.
How Nero Oro Grillo scores as an Italian wine pick
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 against its UK shelf peers. £12.50, or £11.00 in a Majestic mixed six, buys a double-harvest dried-grape white whose 2019 took 90 Decanter points. A straight Sicilia DOC Grillo without the drying 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. Its 8 grams or so of sugar a litre, plus grapefruit acidity, handle korma to tagine better than most dry whites.
Screwcap, 13% and honeyed tropical fruit make it an easy first Sicilian white, and buyers rate it very highly. Its off-dry dried-grape style is not the textbook crisp Grillo, though.
Under £13 and sealed with a screwcap, it runs from shellfish to korma. 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: raised in tank with three to four months on its yeast, and no oak. 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.
Sicilia in five fields
A compact view of what the Sicilia denomination actually requires, and how this bottle sits inside it. Pulled from the official Italian disciplinare.
The 2024 vintage in Sicily
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.
- Best price
- £12.50
- Retailers
- 1 in stock
- Best price
- not listed
- Retailers
- 0 in stock
- ABV
- 13.0%
- Window
- Drink now through 2027
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.
Perfect Pairings
Dishes that go with this wine
Sweet-spice dishes that fit an off-dry Grillo
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.
Mild aromatic curries
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. Its 8 grams or so of sugar a litre cushion gentle spice in a way a bone-dry Grillo cannot.
Try with: Chicken korma · Chicken tikka masala · Massaman curry · More pairings →
Tagines and spiced rice
Moroccan-spiced rice and tagines both work. 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
Rich shellfish, the producer's call
The Wine People list oysters, seafood and shellfish first on their own sheet. The yeast-fed body at 13% carries sweet crab and prawn meat. Aim for richer preparations: it is not the wine for lean, plain seafood.
Try with: Oysters · Tandoori prawns · Salt and pepper prawns
Creamy, buttery spiced dishes
The acidity is pivotal: 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 →
Salty hard cheeses
Comté, aged Gouda and Parmigiano are the cheeses to try. Salt against the wine's touch of sugar is the classic counterplay, and the nutty finish echoes aged rinds.
Try with: Aged Parmigiano · Comté · Mature Gouda
Fierce chilli heat or delicate steamed fish
Vindaloo-level chilli heat magnifies the honeyed weight into exactly the cloying, heavy character that some find in it. 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 →
Drink young: no cellar case for this Grillo
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.
Pour it straight from the bottle.
Aim for the cooler end on a warm day; warmer end opens up more aromatics.
Built for immediate drinking: raised in tank with three to four months on its yeast, and no oak. Decanter's window for the 2019 was just two years.
£12.50 for a 75cl bottle of the 2025, at Majestic, is the best price we track, and we have no signal of further discounting.
Sources for this Nero Oro page
Read directly from each retailer’s public product page once a day. Last refresh: 27 Oct 2026, 02:18 BST. We do not hold stock and we do not accept payment for placement.
Confidence · HighThe name on the label is a brand of The Wine People, not the estate that grew the grapes. Nero Oro is a brand of The Wine People, a Trento wine company whose range comes from six regions of Italy: its own website lists Nero Oro among its brands, with the Grillo, Nero d'Avola and Riserva wines. How we tell estate, shop and brand labels apart.
Confidence · HighDrawn from published drinker ratings, 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 · MediumExplore Grillo, Sicilia DOC and Sicily
Common Questions
It 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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