Avola, Italy News

I am very pleased to renew this encounter which by now has become a tradition, for the mutual exchange of greetings at the beginning of the new year.

Perhaps no place in Europe has seen more growth in quality and quantity of wines than Sicily.

It's not easy being Alessio Planeta, traveling the world to sell the wines of his native Sicily.

First he has to overcome the island's reputation the searing desert it was portrayed as in Clint Eastwood's 1960s "Spaghetti Westerns" and a couple of Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather movies.

First he has to overcome the island's reputation the searing desert it was portrayed as in Clint Eastwood's 1960s "Spaghetti Westerns" and a couple of Francis Ford Coppola's But the Planeta family is in for the long haul, having lived and farmed in Sicily since the 1600s.