Stanza Terrena
Our mission with A Posto Vino is to share the wines and stories of the beautiful small producers of Sicily’s best wines. Our producers don’t have global distribution, big marketing budgets, or brand consultants to help them spread their stories.
Paired with the launch of our first producer, Stanza Terrena, we interviewed Guiseppe Grasso, owner and head wine maker. In addition to making the incredible wines of Stanza Terrena, Guiseppe is a philosopher and amateur chess boxer. Yes, you read that right, chess boxer….
His intention and philosophy is embedded into every bottle of wine he produces.
I had the chance to visit Guiseppe at Villa Santo Spirito in late January, as the vines were dormant and his wines were aging in barrel and chestnut botti (these barrels hold 1500L to 33,000L compared to the traditional barrels you have seen, which only hold 225L).
It was clear from our discussions (almost exclusively in Italian) that Guiseppe is making art, not simply wine.
Please enjoy the interview with Guiseppe below, which was translated from Italian by me, Google, and Notion AI (so forgive any non sense!)
An Interview with Guiseppe Grasso
What is the story and history of your winery, vineyard and wines?
My family has been involved in wine production and marketing on Mount Etna since the mid-1700s. My paternal grandparents were wine merchants (on my grandmother's side) and vineyard owners (on my grandfather's side). Until 1980, they owned about 200 hectares of vineyards on Mount Etna and the wine was sold in bulk in Piedmont and France. Then, after the methanol scandal in Italy and the decrease in prices due to the commercial success of lemons, they sold most of the vineyards and the trade was limited to the local level. The first production of bottled wine suitable for export dates back to 2020.
We have 5 hectares in Passopisciaro, in the Santo Spirito district, in the heart of the vineyard area on the north side of the volcano. The company is centered around Villa Santo Spirito, an old farmhouse where all the grapes from the Santo Spirito district were vinified. Villa Santo Spirito was purchased by my grandparents in 1960.
Today, Santo Spirito is one of the most renowned districts on Mount Etna; there have been no recent lava flows, so the soils are deep and the plant roots can penetrate the soil deeply. We have several plots with different ages and exposures, ranging from 40 to 200-year-old vines.
In the vineyard, I only use sulfur and copper, and in the cellar, I only add SO2 before bottling. All the wines undergo malolactic fermentation, and filtering is very rare (for whites and rosés).
Here are the wines we produce: La Vie Fuille - IGT Terre Siciliane Nerello Mascalese: This wine aims to represent an idea of the past terroir; a blend of parcels with different ages and exposures, short maceration, and aging of the wine in large chestnut barrels (40 Hl). It is the style of wine that my family has always produced in past generations.
Villa Santo Spirito - Etna Rosso DOC: A new idea of terroir; it arises from the conscious eye that parcels the vineyard and distinguishes the young vineyard from the old one. Longer macerations than usual (5/7 days) and maturation of the wine in barriques for at least 16 months.
Nasca - Etna Rosso DOC: A wine made exclusively from grapes from a 200-year-old bush vine; it is a unique and uncompromising wine. All the grapes come from the 200-year-old vineyard with a yield per vine not exceeding 1 kg. Maceration with whole berry for two months. Maturation of 24 months in used barriques.
Camelie - IGT Terre Siciliane Nerello Mascalese Rosato: Direct pressing on a vertical press of Nerello Mascalese.
My vision of wine is very philosophical, I recommend watching the short documentary video "Ars Longa Vita Brevis" (on my Instagram profile).
For me, wine is not just a commercial product, my choices regarding winemaking aim to create an artistic product above all.
Grapes are a raw material, somehow "alchemical"; inside the grape, there is the magic of transformation, by crushing it (destroying it), it magically becomes something completely different: wine. Today we know that this happens because of sugars and indigenous yeasts, but this is a purely technical matter.
We can transform grapes in many different ways, but what is the right way? What is the right wine to make?
The value of wine changes according to the idea of the person who produces it; wine can be terroir, it can be a convivial drink, it can be prestige, it can be a simple commercial product, and it can even be the blood of Christ during Mass. It depends on what we want to do.
With the 2022 vintage, we will reach a production of 20,000 bottles.
Tell us about Guiseppe - who are you as a winemaker?
After studying oenology, I worked in various wineries around the world: in 2017, I worked in Bordeaux, France, first in the small village of Saint Vivien in the vineyard with winemaker Stéphane Chaumard, then I moved to Château Guillaume in Saint Philippe du Seignal, and later to Château La Roberterie in Juillac. In 2018, I lived in Colmar, Alsace, where I met many talented winemakers, but I worked on the border with Germany, in Kaiserstuhl at the cooperative winery Badischer Winzerkeller eG - 79206 Breisach. In 2019, I was an assistant winemaker during the vinification process at Rockburn Wines Limited, in Cromwell, Central Otago/New Zealand. In 2020, I had my most important experience in South Africa at Keermont Vineyards, alongside the great winemaker Alex Starey. In the same year, I founded the new brand STANZA TERRENA.
Tell us about your winemaking philosophy
For me, wine is the poetry of the land, but man has an important role in all of this; nature needs his help to express itself; nature needs human awareness to become poetry, to become terroir.
So the winemaker has the power to make poetry with nature in his hands, but to do this, he needs a lot of humility, he must become a messenger. He must eliminate his ego and follow nature, learn to listen to it. He must learn to deal with the Chaos that is so frightening.
In this, I see a parallel with the work of alchemists during the Middle Ages: in the darkness, they tried to extract gold from lead; but the gold they were looking for was not a material gold, but a "inner" philosophical gold; the alchemists sought their higher self through the transformations of matter.
So I seek myself in the wine I make. I believe that terroir is constantly evolving, so the "typical" wine of Etna today is not the same as it was 50 years ago.
The history of Etna wine has been very troubled; in the past, bulk wine was made to be sold within a year of its production; short macerations and large chestnut barrels allowed winemakers to have lean and versatile wines. (La Vie Fuille) The winemakers of Etna gladly accepted a production system focused on quantity because the soils were fertile and generous.
But what happened next? Around the 80s/90s, awareness of the potential of our terroir led the Tuscans to invest in our lands, making our wines quickly become among the most renowned in the world.
To do this, they needed winemaking methods focused on quality: longer macerations, wood aging based on the vintage, parceling of vineyards based on age and expressiveness, etc. I call it the light after darkness - Villa Santo Spirito We know the rest of the story of Etna wine. (Nasca)
Terroir is constantly evolving not only because the climate changes but also because our psychology changes.
What are three curious thing about your winery?
The villa was built by a landowner from Acireale as a gift for an English opera singer he had fallen in love with. The singer rejected the gift and it was immediately sold to other landowners in Catania.
Villa Santo Spirito is named after the Santo Spirito district, which used to be a palmento and a reference point for all the winegrowers in Passopisciaro.
The STANZA TERRENA brand is inspired by the physical location of the cellar, the lowest part of Villa Santo Spirito, where the transformation of grapes into wine takes place; the room where the spirit of nature becomes matter.
Any food pairing tips for your wines?
As for the pairings of Nasca and Villa Santo Spirito: Nasca can be enjoyed outside of meals as a meditation wine, or I like to pair it with game dishes (such as rabbit), or with a meat stew; Villa Santo Spirito is slightly lighter than Nasca and I enjoy it with pasta dishes with meat sauce or with eggplant parmesan or even lasagna.
Follow Guiseppe on Instagram.
