Our vineyard is 10 and a half hectares: it is a single body close to Naples and is on the edge of the Bosco degli Astroni, a WWF oasis that was once a hunting ground for the Bourbons. In this ancient land, I have recovered an old vineyard of my ancestors, a vineyard of the early nineteenth century.

We grow it with old breeding methods, those used by men thousands of years ago; only for the newly planted vineyards thirty years ago did I introduce more modern techniques. Our wine is produced with agronomic and technical practices that are the fruit of peasant wisdom, which is handed down from father to son but which today, here, I am practically the only one to keep alive . This is why our vineyard will grow, because I accepted to take up the challenge of the times and acquire a field next to ours that risked being abandoned.

We are on the most dangerous volcano in the world (not infrequently sprays of sulfur come from the ground and reach the vineyard). The soil is very loose and not very cohesive, the slopes are steep and the earth would collapse if we hadn't built the terraces, made with a hoe and with a lot of hydraulic work , and if we didn't work continuously to conserve them.

Some of our wines are produced in very few bottles, such as Vigna delle Volpi : 600 per year. And in addition to the Piedirosso and Falanghina DOCs, we have restored other typical and very ancient grapes, of which we have very old plants. In our Volcanic Sand , for example, I wanted to recover the drink of my ancestors, who did not consume pure Falanghina or Piedirosso, but diluted them with other grapes. Along with falanghina (85%) we also include catalanesca, moscato, caprettone, biancolella and jasmine. The latter, in particular, is a grape that has now disappeared and we are the last to have some memorials of it.

Raffaele Moccia