Apart from a thousand-year-old legend that claims that wine in Sicily was introduced by Dionysus, it is clear that the Sicilian region has been producing wine since the dawn of time. The Greeks imported the skills of the Mycenaeans to Sicily and the trade in these wines flourished. In 1773, an Englishman, Sir Woodhouse, began to cultivate one of the region's leading products: Marsala. After the English domination, came the supremacy of the Italian magnates who bought up a lot of Sicilian land around Marsala. The most famous was Vincenzo Florio. For the past twenty years, some of the best Italian wines have come from Sicily. Today, a new generation of Sicilian winemakers are using local grape varieties and taking advantage of the extremely mild climate to produce fabulous wines.

Sicily is the largest region in Italy in terms of surface area, producing 8.1 million hl per year (90% white wine).

The only other DOC that can be found in Sicily in significant quantities is Bianco d'Alcamo, a dry white wine. However, many of Sicily's most famous wines have not been classified as DOC, although most have been given the IGT Sicilia designation. There is talk of creating a DOC that would be valid for the whole of Sicily.

The island's best wines are made from local grapes, notably Nero d'Avola (or Calabrese), Nerello Mascalese for the reds, and Inzolia and Grecanico for the whites.