Cyprus, Sicily and Provence: My highlights of drinking wine all over the world in 2024

Some of the bottles we opened in 2024 came not only with fabulous tastes but also with memories of trips, special places and people. It was a great year – here are some of my drinking highlights.

Cyprus

My first ever trip to Cyprus was a revelation. This, I thought was an island of sunshine holidays and outmoded wines, but I was wrong. Not only is this island gorgeously beautiful, especially if you leave the immediate beach area and explore further into the hills, but it has an immense amount of history, archaeology and wine.

Cyprus has also had its challenges, especially from the time it joined the EU. Until then Cyprus sherry had been a very acceptable drink, a fortified wine that undercut the price of Spanish sherry. It was good, cheap and shipped to the UK in vast quantities.

Then Spain, quite rightly, said that the word ‘sherry’ was derived from the town of Jerez and so it was a protected name. Just like Yorkshire Wensleydale and Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb have to come from Yorkshire, so sherry has to come from Spain.

That hit the market hard and resulted in many vineyards being pulled out and turned over to other crops. But what the EU take with one hand, they give back with another and there are clusters of new wineries, young winemakers and hillsides full of newly planted vineyards, helped by EU funding.

The result is that Cyprus is once again making quality wine, but this time they are making their own styles and using their own grape varieties.

It is taking time for the wines from these new wineries to reach the UK, but the range of indigenous grape varieties such as Xynisteri, Maratheftiko, and Yiannoudi will undoubtedly start to appear in shops. And until they do, perhaps it is time to book a trip to this fabulous place where springtime arrives early and even in February it is possible to eat outside in the warm Cyprus sunshine.

Sicily

Sicily is another Mediterranean island now undergoing great change. The glorious historic temples built by the Greeks are at the heart of this region’s Italian Capital of Culture for 2025, which will attract thousands of visitors to the island.

Instead of its former image, mostly created by gangster movies, the focus for Sicily will be on the undoubted beauty of the island, with its rugged countryside, ancient history, elegant cities and glorious food.

Sicily produces more wine than any other region of Italy. For generations it has churned out vast quantities of wine, and while quantity has been plentiful, the quality has not always been consistently good. All that has changed in recent years and there is a new quality drive in wineries across Sicily.

One of the key changes in the last few decades has been through Settesoli, based in the region around Menfi in the south western part of the island.

There, 2000 families have banded together to create a co-operative that has some of the best equipment, and the best philosophy about growing grapes.

Recycling, water saving and solar panels are at the heart of their ecological processes and they employ hundreds of local workers, which revitalises the local community.

Settesoli’s wines are in almost every UK supermarket, so if you pick up a bottle of Sicilian Nero d’Avola or Grillo, the chances are that it has come from this dynamic co-operative.

Alongside this huge step forward at the great value end of the market, the top estates are seeing the importance of exporting their wines.

Tenuta Regaliali has been making wines for over 200 years on a large estate, that was once a lot larger but agricultural reforms in the 1950’s saw some hillsides distributed to others. But still with 600 hectares they are making exceptional wines with sustainability very much at the centre of whatever they do.

Head to Hic! in Ledston for a range of Regaleali wines, and start with Tasca Tenuta Regaleali Lamuri Nero d’Avola at £19.75 for deep, velvety flavours.

Provence

Provence has seen its fortunes transformed in the last 2 decades. Pink wine used to be the poor relation, a halfway house between red and white, possible sweeter than most people would like and it varied in colour between pale, hardly-there shades to robust, almost reds. But then Provence got its act together.

First came the colour. I remember visiting the Vins de Provence office many years ago and there was a wall of varied colours of wines, and a target zone of how Provence wines should look.

This has set the standard, not just for Provence but for most of the world as they try to climb on the bandwagon that sees top Provence wines sell for substantial prices.

When the excellent Ch. d’Esclans 2022 sells for around £32 a bottle and Garrus, the top wine from Ch. d’Esclans, made from the very best plots of vineyard is priced at around £135 (both available from Harrogate Wines), it is clear that Provence has stepped out of the shadows and into top notch drinking and that is why several bottles of medium-priced Provence wines were poured alongside at my own festive buffet lunch.

Mirabeau is a fabulous example of the diversity of Provence and the regions surrounding it. Maison Mirabeau is owned by Stephen and Jeany Cronk who gave up their life in South West London and moved to France.

Now they produce a fine range of wines, such as Mirabeau Pure Provence Rosé (Waitrose £16.99) which gives the pure essence of this region with peach and pink grapefruit notes, together with a finish that goes so well with a sunshine lunch.

Then there is a whole cascade of wines, including some made from grapes sourced outside the hallowed Provence region, but still with style and freshness. Mirabeau’s Forever Summer, with a humble IGP Méditerranée designation, is around £12 in supermarkets but it comes down substantially on offers, providing great flavours within a modest budget.