Last week, I crossed something off my bucket list: my first trip to the Italian island of Sicily.

I mean, everything about it has always sounded so enticing. First off, it’s a warm, sunny island, which absolutely appealed after this spring’s record-breaking Vancouver rains. I also knew there would be arancini, or risotto balls, everywhere, and that’s just good fun. There is also Mount Etna, the famed active volcano on the eastern edge of the island that is home to many vineyard plantings, bringing a lot of buzz and excitement to global wine enthusiasts.

Of course, there are many producers making phenomenal wine throughout Sicily, too, so meeting as many producers and tasting as many wines as possible would be priority number one.

I was invited for an annual event called Sicilia en Primeur in Catania on the east coast (at the foot of Mount Etna), a wine show where more than 50 producers unveil their fresh 2016 releases. Before the show, though, there was an opportunity for a three-day tour of wineries around the city of Palermo, on the northwestern part of the island.

We were a small group on the tour: writers from San Francisco, South Korea, China, Sweden, and other parts of Italy were in my group. We were a happy multicultural crew, having only the world of wine as a common language, but sometimes that’s enough.

Sicily smells great. It really does. A salty sea breeze is a constant, wafting through the jasmine and citrus trees the island has in abundance. The landscape is gorgeous, each vineyard I passed through stunning in its own way. Those vineyards are tended with respect. It’s very common that wine grapes are farmed organically, without the use of synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides; the hot, dry climate keeps pest and disease pressure at bay. Soils tend to be clay, sand, and a bit of limestone in the eastern spots I visited, and then (it probably goes without saying) those on Mount Etna are volcanic.

The night I arrived in Palermo, I’d settled in for dinner at that evening’s accommodation at Hotel Magaggiari. Within moments of taking my seat, right on cue, I was served arancini, their version plump with octopus and squid-ink risotto. As the waiter came by to pour a white wine, I was eager to see what my first Sicilian splash would be.

One of the most exciting things about Sicily is its affinity for championing indigenous grape varieties. Would it be a Carricante, laden with tropical fruit and honey? Maybe a Zibibbo, a Sicilian spin on Muscat, overflowing with guava, lime, and elderflower? A Grillo would certainly have hit the spot; the charismatic variety straddles citrus and stone fruit wonderfully, often with textural hints of pink-grapefruit pith or lime leaf.

Nope, it was none of those; nor was it a grape I hadn’t heard of before. All this way, hopes and dreams being realized, and I was served—a Chardonnay.

Hey, it was a good Chardonnay, and I love Chardonnay, but with its ubiquity around the world, it just doesn’t scream Sicily! to me. At the same time, I shouldn’t have been too surprised: the island also does have a propensity to make wines from international grape varieties. Merlot, Syrah, and Cabernet Sauvignon are fairly common red varieties, but after coming all that way, I would have much rather been sipping something born in the region, like Nero d’Avola, with its gobs of purple-fruit and black-olive notes, or a Nerello Mascalese, with its crunchy red fruit and dusty herbs.

As I toured the island, I kept going back to wondering why Sicilians bother with these international varieties when they have such a wealth of their own unique, expressive grapes to work with.

It was later in the week at the Sicilia en Primeur show, when sitting with Planeta winemaker Patricia Tóth, that I decided to lob the query.

“The international grapes are very important for us,” she told me. “Because often they are people’s first experience with Sicilian wine, and since they know the grape, they can immediately understand the terroir Sicily offers.” That hot climate, indeed, brings a generosity of fruit in Sicilian wine, often with hints of salinity from the sea, and those white floral notes in many Sicilian whites could perhaps be traced back to that pretty, perfumed air.

These are elements easily pulled out when trying a familiar variety yet they may not be as obvious when encountering other grapes with new tastes for the first time.

It made sense. Perhaps it’s more about the region’s wines being uniquely Sicilian and offering a clear expression of the terroir than it is about the grape variety itself. When it comes to good-quality wine from anywhere in the world, it’s a sense of place that often matters most.

This week’s recommendations: Planeta Chardonnay 2014 ($58.17, Marquis Wine Cellars), Nicosia Vegan Organic Grillo 2015 ($18.99, B.C. Liquor Stores), Cusumano Nero d’Avola 2015 ($16.49, B.C. Liquor Stores), and Cusumano Alta Mora Etna Rosso 2015 ($34.99, B.C. Liquor Stores).