Florio

English origins of Marsala

Viticulture had reached Sicily by Phoenician times, but the history leading directly to modern Marsala began in 1773. John Woodhouse, a Liverpool merchant who had come to Marsala to trade barrilla—the soda ash used in soap and glassmaking—encountered the local high-alcohol wine and recognised its commercial potential. He fortified a shipment with spirit and sent it to England. The first consignment comprised 60 casks holding 412 litres each and was well received.

A document dated 19 March 1800 and preserved in the Florio archive records Admiral Horatio Nelson’s order for 500 pipes of Marsala, each holding 400 litres, for the British fleet. In 1806, after the Continental Blockade, Benjamin Ingham moved from Yorkshire to Palermo to produce and market Marsala and initiated early agronomic and oenological studies of the wine. The Whitaker family, related to the Inghams, arrived in 1810 and established what became Marsala’s largest commercial operation.

By 1820, vineyards had replaced much of the uncultivated and pastoral land around Marsala. The English houses worked to improve grape and must quality as well as cooperage, cellar organisation and logistics. From 1830, Ingham issued detailed instructions to growers; these were formalised in his 1837 circular, Brevi istruzioni per la vendemmia all’oggetto di migliorare la qualità dei vini.

Foundation by Vincenzo Florio

In 1833, Vincenzo Florio (1799–1868), who had arrived by sea from Bagnara Calabra, purchased a coastal plot between the Woodhouse and Ingham-Whitaker establishments. His declared purpose was to build a factory for wines made in the manner of Madeira, the terminology then used for Marsala. He founded Italy’s first Marsala-producing company and made quality the defining principle of its fortified wine.

The tuff-stone winery was conceived as a modern industrial complex. It had advanced equipment for its period, a precisely ordered production system and the facilities needed for the concia—the fortification and maturation processes that shaped Marsala. The venture initially struggled against entrenched British competition. Florio supported it with capital accumulated through the spice trade, tuna fisheries, sulphur and an expanding merchant fleet.

Growth and international trade

By the middle of the nineteenth century, Florio had begun to erode the British monopoly. Its ships carried Marsala into American, British and continental European markets, while the company also developed the expanding Italian market that British producers had largely neglected. During the 1850s, Italian Marsala decisively surpassed its English competitors, and Florio became fashionable as a dessert accompaniment among bourgeois households.

Profits were reinvested in expansion and technology. By 1880, the wine complex had direct access to the sea, large warehouses for storage and maturation, and an on-site still producing the spirit required for Marsala. Although Florio had been the last of the historic Marsala houses to be founded, it grew into one of the largest, ultimately surpassing and absorbing its English competitors.

The Florio family’s wider activity extended across three generations and included the first Italian navigation company, the development of canned tuna in oil and the creation of the Targa Florio motor race. During Sicily’s Belle Époque, Donna Franca Florio—known as the Queen of Palermo—helped turn the city into a meeting place for Europe’s cultural elite.

Consolidation and continuity

Between 1924 and 1929, the Piedmontese company Cinzano acquired Cantine Florio and the historic Woodhouse, Ingham and Whitaker brands, consolidating them within one company.

In 1998, the Reina family acquired Cantine Florio and continued its quality-focused project. The operating company is Duca di Salaparuta S.p.A.

Contemporary chapter

In 2022, Florio introduced New Geography, the first range designed to narrate the intimate relationship between individual Marsala wines and the cellar’s climatic geography. Its labels record such elements as the fortification moment, cellar position and distance from the sea, years in oak, route through the cellar, container history and Angel’s Share.

In 2023, Vino Florio—the unfortified Grillo base from which Marsala begins—was bottled and presented at Vinitaly for the first time. The wine had existed as part of production since the winery’s beginnings but had previously remained within the cellars. Its release was intended to expose the first stage of the Marsala process as a wine in its own right.

Coastal growing area

The Grillo used for Vino Florio and Marsala Florio grows on the northern side of Marsala, close to the Stagnone lagoon, the Marsala salt pans and the sea. The vineyards occupy dry, sun-baked ground in the western Sicilian coastal strip covered by the Marsala denomination. The landscape is exposed to intense sunlight, high temperatures, strong winds and a pronounced maritime influence.

The soils are described as sandy, strong, dry-farmed and well drained. Proximity to the salt pans and sea contributes saline characteristics to the grapes. The hot period at the end of July and through August drives sugar accumulation and, especially, phenolic ripeness before the September harvest.

Cellar terroir

For Florio, terroir continues inside the winery. The historic cellars cover approximately 2 hectares of tuff flooring beside the sea and contain four distinct climatic environments. Temperature and saline humidity vary with distance from the water: closer to the sea, temperature falls and humidity rises; farther inland within the complex, temperature increases and humidity declines.

These gradients affect evaporation, concentration and aromatic development. For equal time in oak, wines nearer the sea retain lower concentration and show more brackish notes. Wines farther from the water concentrate more strongly and develop more pronounced spicy and tertiary characters. Blazing summers, rainy winters and warm sand-laden winds also enter the maturation equation through the porous oak containers.

Florio describes its vineyard work as an agro-artisanal and agro-marine approach adapted to intense sun, wind, dry ground and proximity to the sea. Grillo is cultivated in low forms, both alberello and counter-espalier, without irrigation on strong, sandy and well-drained soils.

Work among the rows is carried out by hand in continuity with established local practice. Green pruning removes selected vegetative growth so that every bunch receives appropriate light and air, while maintaining a balance between leaf surface and bunch number. Production is managed from the definition of quantities per hectare through cultivation and crop-regulating operations, within the yields permitted by the Marsala rules.

The fruit is allowed to reach complete maturity across stems, seeds and skins, building sugar and a mature polyphenolic profile. Harvest is deliberately late: the Grillo is picked only after reaching a precise stage of slight overripeness suited to an oxidative, evolving style. No organic, biodynamic or other farming certification is identified.

Vino Florio: the first act

Marsala production begins with Grillo harvested at slight overripeness. Florio calls its approach “hard” agronomy and winemaking: rather than gentle extraction, the grapes undergo forceful pressing in a traditional press to draw substantial colour, dry extract, polyphenolic structure and saline character from the berries.

The must ferments tumultuously in concrete tanks. Temperature is allowed to fluctuate rather than being held to a uniform profile, and the oenologist applies irregular episodes of oxygenation in response to the behaviour of each lot. The resulting high-alcohol base is Vino Florio, the wine suitable for becoming Marsala DOC. It is unfiltered and continues to evolve; time on the lees and further development in concrete form part of this first stage.

Fortification—the “falling in love” stage

After fermentation, the oenologist tastes and evaluates each high-alcohol base-wine lot and selects its fortification according to the intended future evolution. Florio calls this encounter between wine and alcohol innamoramento, or “falling in love.” It marks the transition from operations shaped by a single growing season to the succession of seasons experienced during maturation.

The available tools are ethyl alcohol of wine origin, mistelle and cooked must. Mistelle, also called siphon, is made by adding alcohol to grape must to halt fermentation and retain grape sugars. Cooked must is produced by heating Marsala-suitable must over direct flame for several hours.

Marsala Vergine combines Vino Florio and wine-origin alcohol. It must mature in oak for at least five years; Vergine Riserva requires at least ten. Marsala Superiore combines Vino Florio, alcohol, mistelle and cooked must. Mistelle regulates sweetness, while cooked must contributes amber colour and organoleptic complexity. Superiore requires at least two years in oak and Superiore Riserva at least four. The sweetness categories are Secco at 0–39 g/L residual sugar, Semisecco at 40–100 g/L and Dolce above 100 g/L; Vergine retains only small natural residues from fermentation. Both families have a minimum alcoholic strength of 18%.

Geography of ageing

The four climatic environments of the 2-hectare cellar complex hold more than 3,000 oak containers of different forms, dimensions and ages, including barrels, vats and small casks. The oenologist selects container size, precise cellar position and duration, and may move a wine between aisles as it develops. Repeated tasting determines whether it remains near the sea in cooler, more humid conditions or travels farther inland into warmer, drier sectors.

Oak porosity allows evaporation during ageing. Florio measures this Angel’s Share as an organoleptic index: it rises with ambient temperature and time and falls as container size increases. A lower percentage is associated with gentler, fruitier Marsala; a higher percentage signals greater concentration, maturity, structure, complexity and depth.

Time, seasonal change, oxygen, oak type, barrel size, humidity and distance from the sea are treated as active production variables. The New Geography labels make these choices explicit through a blend code, the fortification year, years in oak, route through the cellars, cellar position, distance from the sea and calculated Angel’s Share.

Florio presents Marsala as “liquid art in motion”: a creative process built on continuous dialogue between the oenologist, the wine, the barrel room and time. Its “listening winemaking” asks the oenologist to recognise the correct moment for grape maturity, pressing, fortification and evolution in oak rather than imposing a single standardised path.

The founding commitment to quality remains the stated point of continuity. Tradition is represented by inherited practical knowledge, manual vineyard work, traditional pressing, concrete fermentation and long oak maturation; contemporary interpretation lies in using those tools with precise awareness of cellar climate, oxygen, container form and each lot’s evolving sensory potential.

The winery’s philosophy treats nature and human decision as inseparable. Sun, wind, sea, seasons, humidity and temperature establish the conditions, while repeated tasting and choices of fortification, barrel, location and time guide the wine. Every bottle is conceived for continued evolution and as a record of decisions made years before release.

New Geography extends that principle into transparency. Its narrative labels expose the maturation path rather than reducing Marsala to age and sweetness alone, recording the fortification moment, cellar geography, container journey and evaporation that created an individual expression.