Tenuta Whitaker Mozia Grillo 2022

Tenuta Whitaker is actually a re-creation of a vineyard that existed over 2,500 years ago on the island of Mozia in Sicily. It’s a 100-acre islet in the Marsala Lagoon (half a mile from Sicily) that used to be used as a trading outpost around 800 BC and eventually became part of a Carthaginian colony before the Greeks attacked in 400 BC.

For decades, archaeologists studied the tiny island before identifying it as the Phoenician city of Mozia. In 1902, Joseph Whitaker, an amateur archaeologist bought the property to continue the study of the ancient ruins. As part of that purchase, he decided to reconstruct the vineyard that been on the island though he admitted he was in “a little bit over his head”.

So he did what any novice would do, he contracted one of the best wineries in the south of Italy, Tasca d’Almerita to help him with the project. How could they say no to something so cool?!?

In 2007, the Tasca family in joint efforts with the Whitakers announced Tenuta Whitaker, and began restoring the vineyard along its original historical lines, farming the vines organically, without irrigation and harvesting everything by hand. To make things even more complicated (but authentic and true to history), there was nowhere to put a winery building on the tiny island so all the fruit is taken back on row boats to Tasca d’Almerita’s winery in central Sicily!!!