Casa Brecceto Irpinia Ariano Bianco 2022 750ml

Casa Brecceto, the winery as we know it today, was founded in 2018 by a small group of local friends/winemakers/agro-enologists, but, they started out over twenty years ago as the “Arajani Enoprogetto”, exploring the wine potential of their ancient Ariano Irpino and Irpina River valley surroundings. The group was founded in 2001 by Oto Tortorella (who died in 2020), Fortunato Sebastiano and Igor Grassi. For the last two decades, this group have been working with native grape varieties in secluded and often abandoned vineyard sites deep in the backwoods of Campania. Until 2018 the group worked quietly making "garagist" style wines in extremely small quantities. These wines showcased the potential of the land, grapes and their winemaking craft as they experimented with fermentation, aging vessels and agricultural techniques all at once. The wines never made it beyond a handful of local trattorie or curious friends and wine lovers...that is until now! The new and more official winery of Casa Brecceto is now headed up by Maria Teresa Ciccarelli (MTC as she prefers to be called) and is under the agronomic guidance of Fortunato Sebastiano. Today, Casa Brecceto owns a little over 2 hectares of vineyards and farms an additional 2 hectares in and around their village, collaborating with local farmers. They work with native grape varieties including Fiano, Greco, Coda di Volpe, Piedirosso, Aglianico and Sciascinoso, with a total production of ~8500 bottles at this time. The land is worked using a combination of certified organic practices as well as biodynamic preparations when necessary. Soils contain a mixture of various calcium rich clays, volcanic sand and marne deposits making for some very complex wines.