27 May Inside the Mountain: A Visit to Terra Costantino on Etna’s Eastern Slope

You do not just visit Terra Costantino; you descend into it. The winery is built ten meters underground, deep in the belly of Mount Etna. As a result, the winery’s cellar stays naturally cool and still. Above, the vineyard terraces stretch along the volcano’s eastern slopes at 500 meters above sea level, where sea breezes meet ancient lava soils, and where roots push through sandy layers to find water in the cracks of hardened rock.

It is hard to imagine, standing on this land today, that when Dino Costantino, who once worked in construction, bought the property in the late 1970s, it was just a green hillside dotted with trees and untouched by chemicals. After purchasing the property, Dino lived there with his family. Long before “organic” became a wine-world buzzword, he refused to spray chemicals as he was simply protecting the soil his children played on. As a result, in 2001, Terra Costantino became the first certified organic winery on Etna.

But the real shift came in 2013, when Dino and his son Fabio pivoted from bulk wine production to bottling their own estate wines. The decision marked a return to tradition with a modern eye for what they describe as “new style, old times.” That ethos touches every aspect of their approach: native varieties, spontaneous fermentations, minimal intervention, and a reverence for Etna’s staggering geological complexity.

Soils That Span Millennia

Etna is a living mountain. Even within a single vineyard row, the soil may jump thousands of years in age. As we were looking at a map, Fabio explained to us that you could be standing on 5,000-year-old lava and find 3,000-year-old deposits just a few feet away. This mosaic is part of what makes Etna’s wines so captivating.

Terra Costantino farms on sandy, lava-rich soils that are dry-farmed. “The roots find a way,” Fabio said. This is not just poetic; it is practical. Rain is sparse, and the vineyards rely on deep root systems to thrive.

A Taste of the Volcano

Tasting through the wines feels like flipping through a geological diary. Our tasting started with the 2023 Etna Bianco, a field blend of 80% Carricante, 15% Catarratto, and 5% Minnella. The wine bursts with citrus and tropical fruit, wrapped in mouth-coating texture and brisk acidity. Its minerality and salt-kissed finish echo the nearby sea.

In contrast, we also tasted the estate’s first vintage of the Etna Bianco. The 2013, was never meant to age and yet it has. Time has brought some oxidation, but the acidity still sings, and the finish lingers.

The Etna Rosato is a favorite of the family who started making rosé wines long before it became trendy. The 2024 Etna Rosato is a blend of 90% Nerello Mascalese and 10% Nerello Cappuccio. The grapes spent a few hours on the skins for color and grip and the finished wine offers fresh red berry tones and bright acidity. We also tasted the 2013 Etna Rosato, a wine darker in color and showing a bit of age but still offering red fruit aromas and acidity.

The Etna Rosso 2022 shows the lighter, ethereal side of Nerello Mascalese, with floral and wild berry notes, volcanic minerality and sapidity on the finish.  By contrast, the 2014, with eight years of age, provides a savory depth with spice, tobacco, and forest floor notes, a reminder that this grape can age with grace.

Contrade and Character

The single-vineyard wines of Terra Costantino offer even more nuance.

• Contrada Praino Bianco 2023 is an Etna Bianco Superiore from Contrada Praino in Milo, the only village allowed to use the “Superiore” designation. At 700 meters, this 2-hectare site is planted to Carricante bush vines. The wine, fermented and aged entirely in stainless steel, is electric with acidity, minerality, and saline character.
• Contrada Blandano Bianco 2021 blends 90% Carricante and 10% Catarratto from old vines which are aged 10 months in barrel. The nose balances dried fruits, honey, pineapple, toasted nuts, and volcanic notes.

• Contrada Blandano Rosso Riserva 2019 is a blend of 90% Nerello Mascalese and 10% Nerello Cappuccio from 60–150-year-old ungrafted vines, fermented in concrete and aged in barrel. Rare among Etna producers, the Riserva classification demands time, patience, and capital as this wine spends at least four years aging, with one year in bottle. The result is a multi-layered wine of elegance with a kiss of oak, beautiful complexity, and impressive structure.

Our tasting concluded with a wild-card wine called Rasola 2023. A single-terrace field blend made by Dino himself, it includes all the whites and two red varieties, spontaneously fermented. This savory and juicy wine is the wine that everyone in the winery proudly called “Dino’s wine”.

Final Thoughts

Etna wines are often described as “Burgundian” for their elegance and transparency. But Terra Costantino reminds you they are something entirely their own: born of lava, sea air, ancient soils, and a mountain that never sleeps. And at Terra Costantino, it is not just wine made on a volcano, it is a wine made inside it.