While the estate takes the name of his father, it is Giuseppe Rosso who is behind one of the favorite names in the Etna-ssance that is ongoing. A native of Passopisciaro - a village on the north face of the Volcano, Giuseppe was not trained in oenology, yet had somewhat unknowingly spent his early years training to make wine.
Girolamo oversaw 12 hectares of vines in Passopisciaro, selling his grapes in bulk to help make ends meet when Giuseppe was young. While Russo the younger had studied both music (namely piano) and literature, in 2004 he was given the opportunity to take hold of his father's vines. This was an exciting time on the great slopes of Etna - notable vinous legends such as Salvo Foti and Frank Cornelissen were metaphorically and literally building roots in Etna, and Giuseppe took the opportunity to learn from his neighbors and future mentors - admitting his knowledge was limited to experience only, and absorbing lessons from every one of them.
What this has borne out is a love and care for each individual site as its own character in the "plot" - I mean that as in an element to a story, but it could easily be a physical plot. You see, Etna's every corner and slope is full of wildly different extremes, redefined over eons by liquid hot magma - thank you, Dr. Evil. Taking a cue from his mentors as well as from centuries of tradition (and learn-ed knowledge), the vines are trained in alberello formation - bush-trained, in a way, but in a perfect geometrical formation that resembles a box-and-one basketball defense: four square, the fifth in the middle. This allows for the perfect strain on each and every vine to maximize the concentration of each cluster.
Gifted some vines nearly a century old from his father's stock, Giuseppe's wines are not as humble and shy as he - much the opposite. Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio are chief here, with a nice splash of Carricante to produce the vibrant whites as well. Everything is performed organically in the vineyard as it has been for over a century, and in the cellar, small-lot fermentations are the preference in Slavonian oak and cement vessels.
