BARREL AGED SPIRITS COLLECTION

Florio _108 MARSALA The Sicilian Wine That Speaks English BARREL-AGED SPIRITS COLLECTION

MARSALA

was originally from Liverpool (1730-1813), ar rived here around 1773. He had come to trade barrilla (soda ash that was used to produce soap and glass) and was “won over” by wine with a high alcohol content, which quickly became his most famous product.

Marsala has English origins: in fact, it is the result of an entrepreneurial disposition that was masterfully intertwined with the viticul tural vocation of Sicily, which endowed the pragmatic British spirit with the right “body” to produce a special wine, one that can con quer global markets and can be found on the most prestigious tables of the time. The British arrived on the western coasts of Sicily during the so-called “English decade” (1806-1815), when King Ferdinand IV of Bour bon and his court, after fleeing from Naples and the Napoleonic troops, settled in Palermo. English merchants had been on the island for at least 30 years, mainly in Messina, Palermo, Syracuse and Marsala. John Woodhouse, who