Casa Setaro | Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio Rosso

Beef brisket, barbecue beef, smoked pork, venison, prime rib, carne asada, lamb chops, or steak. Spaghetti bolognese or eggplant parmesan.

Nestled at the base of Mount Vesuvius (or Vesuvio, the only active volcano in continental Europe) is the most densely populated volcanic region in the world. With over 600,000 people living in Vesuvio’s danger zone, tending vines in the shadow of an active volcano gives a whole new dimension to the notion of “risk-embracing winemaking.” The same ash that buried Pompeii and Herculaneum in AD 79 nourishes a host of grape varieties, marking them with a forceful and distinctive imprint of terroir.

While southern Italy’s other notable active volcano, Mount Etna, has developed a thriving and internationally acclaimed wine scene in eastern Sicily over the past 15 years, Vesuvio has yet to… explode. Etna, of course, is blessed with a critical mass of highly committed, boundary-pushing winegrowers, whereas on Vesuvio viticulture is dominated by small, relatively disconnected farmers whose wines are slowly being discovered by the area’s robust tourist market.

Massimo Setaro is transforming the zone’s reputation and bringing the wines of Vesuvio a modern-day recognition he feels they deserve. Heir to the renowned Setaro pasta-making enterprise, 4th generation Massimo founded Casa Setaro in 2004, beginning with his family’s small pre-phylloxera holdings on Vesuvio’s southern slopes. 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.