When an unexpected storm forced the Liverpool merchant, John Woodhouse, into the Sicilian port of Marsala in 1770, he had no idea that this chance event would end up making him a fortune. He fortuitously discovered that the local wine when fortified with brandy, would make an excellent competitor to madeira, then one of the world's most popular wines. Together with his son, Woodhouse established a business in Marsala and began exporting his wine to Britain and soon, much of the world. As a result, both men became extremely wealthy.

Their success was inevitably emulated by others, in particular, the Ingham and Whitaker families from Yorkshire, who arrived in Sicily some thirty years later and set up their own company to rival and eventually overtake the Woodhouses. They also made vast fortunes out of marsala wine, becoming rich beyond their wildest dreams. The families owned vast, palatial homes in both Sicily and Britain where they enjoyed the life of landed gentry.

This is the story of those three families, the lives they led, their trials and tribulations, as well as their remarkable achievements in an island constantly beset by wars, pestilence, earthquakes, civil unrest and the Mafia.