Catarratto: Sicily's Workhorse White, Finally Worth Drinking

Catarratto is pronounced cah-tah-RAH-toh.

Sicily's most-planted white grape spent the twentieth century hiding. For decades it went into bulk shipments and the base wine for Marsala, crushed by the ton and rarely named on a label. Grow it for flavor instead of volume and you get a dry, lemony white that does everything a cheap Pinot Grigio does, with more to say and usually a lower price.

What it tastes like

Start with lemon — juice and pith, not candy. Behind it comes green almond and a bit of stone fruit, then a savory turn that separates Catarratto from the crowd of neutral Italian whites: fennel, aniseed, a whiff of the dry herb scrub that covers Sicilian hillsides. The acidity is real but softer than a mountain white like Carricante, which is why Sicilian winemakers have long used Catarratto to round off sharper grapes.

Dry, medium-bodied, unoaked in most bottles. It drinks cool and clean, the kind of white you pour without ceremony and finish without noticing. Give it seafood, roast chicken, anything with lemon and olive oil, and it slots in without fuss.

Why it was overlooked for so long

Catarratto's problem was that it grows too well. Left alone the vine throws enormous bunches, and for shippers chasing cheap volume that was the whole point: big yields, quick press, ferment in vast concrete and wooden vats, sell in bulk. The grape that got respect got it through Marsala, where a few houses treated it seriously. Dry table wine was an afterthought, and most of it tasted like one.

The fix is unglamorous farm work: prune hard, pull leaves, drop fruit in early summer so the vine ripens less and concentrates more. A generation of Sicilian growers has done exactly that, on the Alcamo DOC flats in the island's west and up on the Etna slopes, and the wine has changed with it. There are three field selections — Comune, Lucido, and Extra Lucido — but DNA testing showed they are the same grape propagated for different berry skins, so the name on the bottle matters more than the subtype.

Bottles to look for

Look for single-estate wines rather than anonymous supermarket blends. Cantine Barbera in Menfi, Feudo Montoni, Cusumano, and Marco De Bartoli, the Marsala house that took the grape seriously first, all bottle Catarratto worth seeking, and it turns up under the Alcamo DOC and the broader Terre Siciliane IGT. On a label it may also read Catarratto Bianco.

Here is the honest part. The cheapest Catarratto, the sub-fifteen-dollar bottles that make up most of what reaches US shelves, is pleasant and forgettable — clean, citrusy, gone from memory by the next glass. The grape rewards spending a few dollars more for an estate that cut its yields on purpose. This is a grape climbing out of a bulk-wine past, and it hasn't fully arrived; some bottles still taste like the volume they came from. Buy up a tier and the difference is obvious.

Where to buy

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Catarratto shows up in the US mostly through Sicily-focused importers and larger online retailers rather than every corner shop, so searching by name beats hunting the shelf. Look for a named producer and a recent vintage.

browse Catarratto on Wine.com →

— Chris Berry

If you're switching from a famous grape

If Pinot Grigio is your default weeknight white, Catarratto is the upgrade that costs less. It hits the same crisp, dry, no-homework note, but where cheap Pinot Grigio thins out into pear-flavored water, Catarratto keeps a citrus spine and adds a savory, herbal finish that gives you something to think about. See Wines Like Pinot Grigio for the full swap, and Order This Instead for the short list.

Part of Lesser-Known Wines: 17 Obscure Grapes Worth Switching To — the full underdog-swap guide.