Wine Tour of Marsala, Donnafugata and Florio wineries

Here is what you will live

With this tour, you will have it all: wine, landscape, relax, fun and great memories to bring back home!

Departure from your hotel by car with an English speaking driver. You will be taken to Marsala to visit the Florio Winery, a place of warm, mineral-rich soil and sea-kissed breezes where Marsala wine has been produced for nearly two centuries.  Florio is an innovator by tradition, revealing an unexpected world, a modern artisan with an intense, unusual and precious soul. 

The guided tour of the historic Florio Cellars begins with the gigantic vats, eight unique examples built in the late 1800’s and still used for ageing marsala, that greet visitors at the entrance to the Cellars. Once past the huge vats, we enter the Garibaldi Room, a spacious area from where visitors catch a first glimpse of the fascinating barrel cellars. Here visitors can see the weapons given by Giuseppe Garibaldi to Vincenzo Florio to thank him for his loyalty in 1862, before continuing through the Florio and Ingham-Woodhouse Rooms to the barrel cellars. Each of these fascinating cellars is 165 metres long with no less than 104 arches, under which 1,400 kegs and around 600 barrels and vats of varying capacity are aligned. After a fascinating approximately twenty minute tour through the barrel cellars, where the ancient tufa stone floor has been restored, we come to the Donna Franca Tasting Room

Then, you will be taken to visit the Donnafugata Winery. The Rallo family, who owns Donnafugata, has been in the wine business for over a century and the winery is known for its exceptionally wide range of wines, made with autochthon wine grape varieties such as Inzolia, Catarratto, Zibbibo and Nero d’Avola as well as international varieties like Viognier. The wine maker will meet and show you his techniques of viticulture. You will enjoy a wine tasting with light lunch at winery.

On the way back to your hotel a special tour is planned along the coast from Trapani and Marsala. This coastline is characterized by the salt-pans. These are large salt water pools divided by narrow strips of land, where for centuries salt has been produced. This route is called “la via del sale” (the Salt Road), remarkable for its many Dutch-style windmills, used to pump sea water and grind the salt. The many mounds of salt (piled up salt creating little white hills) are then covered with terracotta tiles to prevent the rain from melting them. The salt-pans were probably established by the Phoenicians who set these basins to collect the salt. Today, this thousand-year-old salt culture is still in use.