The Volcano Family: Three Centuries on the South Slope & Lacryma Christi Without Make-Up
The main road up to Vesuvius's crater is named after the Matrone family, who have tended vines and made wine on the volcano's southern slopes since at least the 1700s. In this century, Andrea Matrone and his cousin Francesco reappropriated the original eighteenth-century family cantina and its 2.3 hectares of vineyard, and set about making Lacryma Christi the way the family's memory said it should be: organic farming in potassium- and iron-rich volcanic sand, pied de cuve fermentations from local yeasts, no make-up of any kind. About 10,000 bottles a year of white Caprettone and red Piedirosso — wild, smoky, salty wines from one of the world's most famous volcanoes, made by a man who loves the blues as much as the harvest.
Origin — The Road to the Crater Has Their Name
Few estates can locate their roots the way this one can: the road that climbs to the crater of Vesuvius is named after the Matrone family, who have cultivated vines and made wine on these slopes since at least the eighteenth century. The cantina itself — the original family cellar — dates to the 1700s.
The modern chapter belongs to Andrea Matrone and his cousin Francesco, who this century reappropriated the old family cantina and its 2.3 hectares of vineyard on the south-facing side of the volcano. Rather than modernise the soul out of the place, they doubled down on it: organic farming (certified from 2024), and fermentations started with pied de cuve — a small starter culture built from the vineyard's own yeasts before harvest.
Andrea is, by every account, as sincere and easygoing as his wines: a man who loves making wine almost as much as he loves playing blues guitar. The combination matters — the wines have the looseness and warmth of something made by hand and ear, not by protocol. One American merchant called the estate the soul of Naples, bottled.
The Place — Two Hectares of Volcano
The vineyards sit on the south-facing slopes of Vesuvius, in sandy, highly volcanic soils rich in potassium and iron — dark, friable ground strewn with lava rock, with the city and the sea spread out below. The Caprettone white grape is spread over three vineyards at 30, 120 and 200 metres; the Piedirosso for the red grows in the Monaco parcel (25-year-old vines) and Campanariello (40-year-old vines on native rootstock). Farming is organic, dry, and as hands-off as a volcano allows.
Caprettone, the Vesuvius White
The estate's white is built on Caprettone — a variety found almost nowhere outside the Vesuvio DOC, and which Andrea suspects may be none other than Trebbiano d'Abruzzo in disguise. Whatever its passport, on the volcano it gives creamy, oily-textured whites of pear, peach and strong salinity.
Ungrafted Survivors
The Campanariello parcel holds forty-year-old Piedirosso on native rootstock — vines that never knew phylloxera's remedy because the sandy volcanic soil did the protecting. Own-rooted vines are living history, and they taste like it.
Lacryma Christi — the Tears of Christ
The appellation's name carries the legend: Christ's tears, falling on Vesuvius, caused vines to sprout. By rule the red must be at least 50 percent Piedirosso; Matrone's version is 90, with 10 percent Aglianico — a wide-open blend of the volcano's own grapes.
Organic, at Last on Paper
The family has farmed these slopes for centuries; formal organic certification arrived with the 2024 vintage. The paperwork followed the practice, not the other way round — the traditional order of things on a mountain that predates certification by three hundred years.
Winemaking — Pied de Cuve & Patience
The cellar work is deliberately unspectacular: hand-picked grapes, fermentations started by pied de cuve from local yeasts, long quiet ageing in large old vessels. The red Lacryma Christi — 90 percent Piedirosso, 10 percent Aglianico — ages fourteen months in 500-litre tonneaux, then ten months in stainless steel before release. Nothing is masked; the wines are, in one merchant's phrase, completely make-up-free.
The white is made two ways at once: part of the Caprettone is vinified in purity with a 48-hour skin maceration and soft pressing, fermentation without temperature control — a method that pulls colour and varietal aroma rather than easy fruit — while the rest is pressed immediately and co-fermented with Falanghina. The blend that results is the volcano's white face: creamy, saline, mineral.
What links the bottles is frankness. Warm, frank and engaging, deep red fruit radiating volcanic goodness without concern or affectation — that was one taster's note on the red, and it doubles as a description of the family. These are wines that hide no element of their personality, made by people who do the same.
The Wines — Smoke, Salt & Soul
A small range from two hectares of volcano: the Lacryma Christi white from Caprettone, the red from old-vine Piedirosso, and the easygoing Spasso — every bottle a report from the south slope.
Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio Rosso 'Territorio de Matroni'
90% Piedirosso, 10% Aglianico — Vesuvio DOCThe flagship: Piedirosso from 25- and 40-year-old vines (the older ungrafted), with a tenth of Aglianico, aged fourteen months in 500-litre tonneaux and ten in steel. Fragrant, spicy, smoky, stony — warm and frank rather than brooding, it takes a light chill beautifully. The volcano's red, unmasked.
Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio Bianco
~90% Caprettone, Falanghina, Greco — Vesuvio DOCThe white of the mountain: Caprettone led, part macerated 48 hours on skins, fermented without temperature control on pied de cuve. Creamy, almost oily in texture, pear and peach over a strong mineral salinity — the white for anyone who loves savoury, sea-tinged wines.
Spasso
Campania Rosso — the everyday bottleThe house red for the table: Spasso — 'fun', more or less — the loose, drinkable face of the estate, made with the same hands and the same yeasts but none of the ceremony. The bottle Andrea would probably open himself, after the guitar.
Legacy — The Soul of Naples, Bottled
Cantine Matrone's first legacy is continuity that money can't simulate. Three centuries on one slope, a road named for your family, an eighteenth-century cantina brought back to life by two cousins: in a wine world of three-year-old projects, that depth of standing is itself a statement about what terroir actually means.
The second is the rehabilitation of Lacryma Christi. Long dismissed as a souvenir wine, the appellation in hands like these returns to what it was: a serious volcanic wine of place. Matrone's unfiltered, pied-de-cuve versions are among the bottles rebuilding the name's dignity abroad.
The third is proof of the south slope's future. Organic certification from 2024, a rising profile among specialist importers, and a new generation at the helm: the volcano's oldest wine family has quietly become one of its newest hopes. Vesuvius keeps its wildness; the Matrones keep Vesuvius.