Funny how things change. Traditionally, young Sicilian men faced the stark choice between a back-breaking life of agricultural toil or of throwing in their lot with the wise guys.

Now it may well be the wise guys themselves who are running their slide-rules over the profits being cultivated in those fields — or, at least, in the vineyards — and wondering how they missed out on the action.

The Sicilian wine industry has transformed itself in the last decade or so and state-of-the-art wineries full of gleaming stainless steel are sprouting up everywhere. Ironically, the fact that, like Portugal, they didn’t have the wherewithal in the 1980s to rip up all their indigenous vines and replace them with Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay has provided the soil in which this new-found prosperity is taking root.

Our unslakeable thirst for the vinous new — and especially for stuff that comes with a sense of its own identity — has us beating a path to Sicily's door for her sultry, sapid whites and her sultry, smoky reds.

I'm going to have to use the word ‘autochthonous’ at some point — it’s a requirement in any wine piece this year - so I'm glad to have got it over with without too much fuss. If Grillo and Inzolia — among the whites — and reds made from Nero d'Avola and Nerello Mascalese are as yet unfamiliar, then you have two choices. The first is to wait a bit, because they won’t be unfamiliar for much longer; the second is to get stuck in now.

I took a bit of persuading with the whites — they haven’t been fortifying them into Marsala for centuries for no reason — but fiery winemaker Lorenza Sciamma converted me. Telling us about the new vintage of her prized Grillo at Fondo Antico, she suddenly whipped off her hair-band and shook out her long, black hair. “E profondo, vero?” she smouldered, taking a sniff, and what pasty English wine hack could deny her?

Many a winemaker is a poet manqué — Lorenza says that's why she named her wine ‘Parlante’. It does the talking for her, and I’m sure if it could get a word in edge-ways it would commend its creamy nose, classy minerality and neon-bright acidity to us.

Sicilians are passionate people. It may be something to do with volcanoes, and — like poor folks everywhere — they like lots of drama, and lots of sex, doubtless often simultaneously. And why not? It’s about the most fun you can have for free. They also love to eat lots of sticky puddings to further sweeten their lot.

I confess I write about wine for Tesco magazine but that’s not why I recommend their "Finest" Fiano — it’s because, at £5.69, I can't think of a better value wine at the price. Not a native grape — it comes from Campania where it usually costs about double — it’s big and sappy and savoury.

Nero d’Avola makes astonishingly different wines in different locations on the island but —however daft it sounds — all seem to have some sort of volcanic quality to them. It’s a distinctive grape and there’s a minerality and a crackle of scrub-fire smoke and bags of lip-smacking, wild, red berries in all of them. I daren't use the "T" word again so if you see anything from Donnafugata, Villa Tonino, Planeta, Cantine Barbera or Fondo Antico – among many - you're in luck. It's early days for Nerello over here but watch this space - alternatively, try M&S's new one, and let me know if it's any good.

Whatever you do, don't fail to try Donnafugata's Passito (that's a sweet wine made from semi-dried grapes) di Pantelleria (that's a little island to the south) called Ben Ryé — it’s perfect with something sticky, perhaps following argumentative sex.