aro wine is produced from grapes grown on the hills overlooking the Straits of Messina. Grape-growing and winemaking have been practiced in the Messina area since ancient times, at least as long ago as the Mycaenean period (14th century BC), as archaeological discoveries on the Eolian (Lipari) Islands indicate. There is also evidence of extensive trading, in which wine was one of the major articles, between the natives and the Phoenicians in the early centuries of the first millennium BC.Further evidence is supplied by inscriptions on coins dating to the 6th-4th centuries BC that have been found at Naxos and on the Lipari Islands. And shortly before the beginning of the Christian era, Julius Caesar celebrated his third consulate by acquiring and distributing large quantities of Mamertino, a Messina wine.
The activity was abruptly checked when the Arabs conquered Sicily but the situation has steadily improved since the 14th century. In 1848, a total of 18,000 hectares in the area were planted in vines. The expansion continued until the final decade of the last century when vineyards totaled 40,000 hectares and production amounted annually to 500,000 hectoliters. The arrival of the phylloxera vine louse gravely damaged the vineyards and the area planted in vines had fallen to 21,000 hectares by 1929.
The decline reached its nadir in 1985, when the vine-bearing area amounted to only 5,700 hectares. Although Messina winemaking appeared to be doomed, appearances were deceiving. For growers and winemakers decided in the darkest period to take the quality route. And a leading role in that effort was assigned to Faro, which is made in a zone that at the end of the last century was exporting huge quantities of wine to France to be used in the production of Bordeaux and Burgundy. That superior red wine, which goes well with most meals and especially roasted meats, has established a fine reputation that has spread as far as the United States.
