If you and your Pinot Noir-loving mates want to broaden your horizons, we strongly suggest having a go at this. It’s made predominantly from Nerello Mascalese (nair-rello mask-ah-lay-zay), a native Sicilian variety grown on the northern slopes of Mt Etna. It has the same lifted red fruit aromatics as Pinot, with heady favour complexities of smoke, tobacco and dried herbs. It’s supple and mineral.

After training as a classical pianist, Giuseppe Russo started his estate in 2005, naming it after his father, Girolamo. The winery is based in Passopisciaro, where Giuseppe was born and raised, at the heart of Mount Etna’s recent vinous renaissance. Four organicallly managed vineyards sit between altitudes of 650 to 800 metres above sea level. Giuseppe beautifully describes the uniqueness of the wine of Etna  -

“A wine giddy with sun and with light and with the song of the wind in the valley. A wine that carries the breath of the volcano: a blend of smoke and ashes and ripe, fragrant fruit – a fruit which yields to the bite like a gentle caress”