Pantelleria, volcanic island at the extreme southern limit of Italy and closer in fact to Cape Bon in tunisia than to the southern coast of sicily, to which it belongs administratively. Moscato di Pantelleria is one of Italy’s finest dessert wines, made from the zibibbo (muscat of alexandria). The wine has enjoyed a certain reputation since the 1880s, when the marsala house of Rallo began to market it. The viticulture of the island is unusual: vines are gobelet trained but buried in a hole (called a ‘conca’ by local growers) and vineyards surrounded by stone walls built from volcanic black rock to prevent dehydration by the hot scirocco winds that sweep across the island.
