Barone Montalto

Barone Montalto is a Sicilian brand whose home ground is the Valle del Belice, inland from Trapani in the west of the island. That is a hot, dry, bright part of Sicily and the wines that come out of it are built for generosity rather than restraint.

Worth knowing who is behind it, because the label does not tell you and it changes how you read the wines. Barone Montalto is not a small family estate. It is a brand of MGM Mondo del Vino SpA, a company registered at Forli in Emilia-Romagna with operations at Priocca in Piedmont, and MGM in turn sits under the direction and control of Argea SpA, one of the largest wine groups in Italy. None of that is a criticism. Groups of that size are a large part of why clean, correct, varietally honest Sicilian wine reaches a UK shelf at this price, and being consistent across vintages is genuinely harder than making one good bottle. But it does mean that when the marketing talks about heritage and identity, what you are actually buying is a well-run brand rather than a grower's plot, and you should know that before you decide what it is worth to you.

The range is broader than most people realise and it is not all cheap. Icon is the top tier, with Ammasso in red and Montalto in white, both Sicilia DOC. Fumu is a pair of Etna DOC wines, red and white, from the other end of the island entirely. Collezione di Famiglia is the single-variety line and runs to Syrah, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Nerello Mascalese, Grillo, Viognier and Zibibbo. Maioliche is the everyday tier, Terre Siciliane IGT, and covers Nero d'Avola, Grillo, Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio among others. Passivento is a dried-grape line that now also includes de-alcoholised bottlings, and Cucunci is the sparkling range.

There is also an organic range that sits outside all of that, including a Pinot Grigio and a Catarratto. Neither appears on the producer's website, which lists no organic tier and no Catarratto at all, so there is no technical sheet to point you at for either.

What I can tell you is why they are here. This is the everyday end of the list, the pair of cases I would keep in the garage in summer, and the job they have to do is be honest and cheap enough that you do not think twice about opening one. The Pinot Grigio is the safe half: if somebody in the house only drinks Pinot Grigio, this is a Sicilian one rather than a northern Italian one. The Catarratto is the interesting half, a Sicilian white variety that most people have never knowingly drunk, and at this price it is a very cheap way to find out whether you like it. Buy a case of each if you want to see the difference for yourself.