Rosa Dolce & Gabbana

Donnafugata's collaboration with Dolce & Gabbana, launched in 2013, was built around a deliberate premise: that Sicily's most expressive terroirs deserved fashion-world visibility — and Etna's volcanic slopes were the centrepiece. Rosa is produced from Nerello Mascalese grown on the eastern flanks of Mount Etna, where black basalt and volcanic ash soils over ancient lava flows force deep root penetration, yielding grapes with pronounced mineral tension and naturally high acidity. Elevation reaches 600–900 metres, with diurnal temperature swings that preserve aromatic freshness through the growing season. In the cellar, the wine undergoes short skin contact to extract the grape's characteristic copper-pink pigment without heavy phenolic extraction, followed by stainless steel fermentation and aging to lock in primary fruit character and volcanic minerality. What sets this rosé apart within the Etna category is the Nerello Mascalese grape itself — a variety more commonly vinified as a structured red, here redirected into a pale, saline, high-acid rosé that retains the variety's signature iron-tinged mineral backbone. Drink young, within 2–3 years of vintage, to capture the volcanic lift at its most vivid.