Casa Setaro, Munazei Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio Rosso 2024

100% Piedirosso

Campania, Italy

250 to 300m altitude volcanic soil sites with ungrafted vines. Earth, smoke, and salt with cleanly rendered dark-red fruits, all on a lithe, gently tannic, spice-marked frame. Short maceration of 3 days. Stainless tanks for six months. 

Mount Vesuvius is the only active volcano in continental Europe, and the most densely populated volcanic region in the world, with over 600,000 residents in the danger zone. Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio is the style of wine here. It translates to “Christ’s Tears on Vesuvius”. The story is that Jesus, crying over Lucifer's fall from heaven, made the vineyards of Vesuvius lush and fertile. 

Massimo Setaro is seeking to transform the zone's reputation and bring the wines of Vesuvio the modern-day recognition he feels they deserve. Heir to the renowned Setaro pasta-making enterprise, fourth-generation Massimo founded Casa Setaro in 2004, beginning with his family's small pre-phylloxera holdings around their hometown of Trecase on Vesuvio's southern slopes. Massimo has since planted new parcels, and today the estate totals 12 hectares-notably, of exclusively own-rooted plant material, as this zone's unforgiving volcanic sand is inhospitable to phylloxera. He works only with indigenous varieties: Piedirosso and Aglianico for his reds; and, while he does grow terrific Fiano and Greco, the characterful and hyper-local Caprettone is what drives his imagination and forms the basis of his most distinctive white wines.

Planted between 200 and 400 meters above sea level, Casa Setaro's vineyards are farmed organically (certified as such), with biodynamic principles incorporated into the largely manual work necessitated by these ancient plants. Fermentations are temperature-regulated but not sculpted, and the wines undergo relatively straightforward aging regimens which promote balance and transparency. These are place-driven wines to their core, absent the stamp of ideology or striving, and they make an enormously compelling case for the special nature of Vesuvio's terroir.