More than 80 years after his father flew his final World War II mission, Fr. Dominic Roscioli continues to find ways to honor his memory.
Fr. Dominic Roscioli honors his father’s World War II service through Salute to Veterans Wine, which helps support housing for homeless veterans in Racine. (Submitted photo)
Today, his father’s photograph appears on bottles of Salute to Veterans Wine, a fundraising ministry that supports homeless veterans and Veterans Village, the tiny-home community in Racine.
For Fr. Roscioli, each bottle is both a tribute to his father and a small gesture of gratitude toward those who served.
Fr. Roscioli, an Archdiocese of Milwaukee priest for 52 years, has spent much of his life serving others. For the past five years, he has served as a sacramental priest at St. Teresa of Calcutta Parish in North Lake. However, his ministry to veterans has taken an unexpected form: wine.
Salute to Veterans Wine is now sold in about 12 to 14 stores across southeastern Wisconsin. Produced by the LoDuca Brothers in Milwaukee, the wines feature a label with a photograph of Fr. Roscioli’s father, Lawrence Roscioli Sr., who served as a bombardier in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II.
“My Dad could have returned home after 30 missions. Instead, he flew 50,” said Fr. Roscioli. “That’s how my dad was.”
But the wine is about more than remembering the past. A portion of its proceeds supports the tiny-home project in Racine, helping homeless veterans achieve stable housing.
“The project creates small villages of about eight to 10 homes, each about 500 square feet,” explained Fr. Roscioli. “A community building offers a place for veterans to share meals, receive counseling and financial literacy services, participate in wellness activities and build relationships. The organization helps veterans move from homelessness into the tiny homes and later into apartment living.”
Fr. Roscioli views the Racine project as a model for similar communities in Milwaukee and across the nation.
For veterans who have spent time without a permanent home, the tiny houses offer something far greater than their square footage suggests: a place to begin again.
“People love my Veterans wines because they want to do something to help veterans, but they don’t know what to do,” Fr. Roscioli said. “This provides them with an easy way to help.”
The LoDuca brothers have embraced the concept, and their Milwaukee-based company produces the wines. Because the “Salute to Veterans” Wine label can be made with different varietals, the bottles can fit naturally alongside other wines in stores and restaurants.
“They fit perfectly in bars and stores,” Fr. Roscioli said. “It’s a much easier sell than my Holy Spirits saint wines.”
After expenses such as labels and production, Fr. Roscioli estimates that the ministry contributes about $100 per month to the veterans’ project.
The amount may be modest, but the support is steady, and each bottle enables someone else to help veterans.
For Fr. Roscioli, beyond his father, the connection to veterans is deeply personal.
His middle name is Jose, which he received in honor of Jose Ortega, one of his father’s wartime friends.
“Jose Ortega was only one mission away from going home,” he said. “He wanted to go home with my dad, so he traded missions with another serviceman he wasn’t scheduled to fly with, and the plane went down.”
Ortega never came home.
For years, people asked Fr. Roscioli about his unusual middle name for an Italian. Why Jose instead of Giuseppe?
“Why Jose?” became a question he heard throughout his life.
Then, years later, during a parish mission he was leading in Florida, Fr. Roscioli experienced a tender moment that brought that name, and its meaning, back to him.
A man approached him and discovered they shared the same name.
“He pounded himself on the chest and then pounded me on the chest, saying, ‘Jose,’” Fr. Roscioli recalled. “It was really a nice moment.”
For Fr. Roscioli, the encounter was a reminder of the unexpected ways a name can connect people across generations and circumstances.
Today, Veterans Wine provides another connection to the past.
Fr. Roscioli’s other fundraising efforts include Holy Spirits Wine, All Saints Wine and Fr. Dom’s Mom’s Pasta Sauce.
But Salute to Veterans Wine holds a particularly personal place in his heart.
The bottle carries his father’s photograph. The proceeds help struggling veterans. And every bottle sold carries forward a story of service, sacrifice and remembrance.
More than eight decades after his father came home from war, Fr. Roscioli is still finding a way to say thank you.
Holy Spirits “Salute to Veterans” wines are available at several area locations:
- Cedarburg — The Cheese Wedge “Uncorked”
- Delafield — Sentry
- Kenosha — Piggly Wiggly
- Kenosha —Tenutas Deli
- Pewaukee — MynxWine Bar
- Racine — Uncorkt
- Racine — Timers
- Sussex — Piggly Wiggly
