Marsala wine Marsala wine Marsala is a wine, dry or sweet, produced in the region surrounding the Italian city of Marsala in Sicily. Marsala first received "Denominazione di Origine Controllata" (DOC) status in 1969. The DOC status is equivalent to PDO: most countries limit the use of the term "Marsala" to those wines that come from the Marsala area, to which the European Union grants Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status. While the city's natives sometimes drink "vintage" Marsala, the wine produced for export is universally fortified similar to Port, Madeira and Sherry. Originally, this addition of alcohol was to ensure that
Vilkitsky Island (Kara Sea) Sea. Vilkitsky Island is bleak and windswept and is covered with tundra. The island is crescent-shaped and it is divided in two by a narrow sound in its midst. It is 42 km in length but only 12 km wide at its broadest zone. The sea surrounding this island is covered with pack ice in the winter and there are numerous ice floes even in the summer. There is a large shallow area between Vilkitsky Island and its southern neighbor, Neupokoyev Island (Остров Неупокоева), named after Konstantin Neupokoev (1884—1924), a naval officer, hydrographer and explorer of the Russian Hydrographic Service