The Borderlanders: Twenty Years in the Backwoods & a Corsair Wine Called Pitatza
Ariano Irpino sits on the Sella di Ariano, the Apennine pass where the Italian boot's spur meets its calf — equidistant from the Tyrrhenian and the Adriatic, a borderland of traditions, languages and agriculture since the Romans ran the via Traiana through it. Here, in 2001, three friends — Oto Tortorella, Igor Grassi and Fortunato Sebastiano — founded the Arajani Enoprogetto and spent twenty years making garagist wines in tiny quantities from secluded, often abandoned mountain vineyards, never selling beyond a few local trattorie. In 2017 the friends took over a small estate and Casa Brecceto was born: mountain viticulture above 650 metres, harvests into November, sometimes after snow, spontaneous fermentations, amphora and steel and wood — and Pitatza, the 'corsair' Aglianico once distributed only through self-managed social spaces.
Origin — A Dream Called Arajani
The story begins in 2001 with the Arajani Enoprogetto, the dream of Oto Tortorella, Igor Grassi and Fortunato Sebastiano — friends exploring the wine potential of the ancient Ariano Irpino countryside and the Irpina river valley. For two decades they worked native varieties in secluded and often abandoned vineyard sites deep in the backwoods of Campania, experimenting with fermentations, ageing vessels and farming techniques all at once.
The initial project envisioned a single wine in extremely limited quantities, the fruit of rigorous grape selection and long cellar ageing: Pitatza, a 'corsair' wine, pure Aglianico from home-grown grapes, distributed only in the circuits of self-managed social spaces — the occupied community centres of Italy's counterculture. For twenty years the wines never travelled beyond a handful of local trattorie and curious friends. Oto Tortorella died in 2020; the project carries his name forward.
In 2017 the group of friends took over a small estate in the Irpinian countryside and Casa Brecceto became a winery in name — today headed by Maria Teresa Ciccarelli ('MTC', as she prefers), with agronomy guided by Fortunato Sebastiano. Around eight or nine wines now, from Aglianico, Fiano, Coda di Volpe, Greco, Piedirosso and Sciascinoso: a little bit of Irpinia, bottled in the healthiest, most joyful way possible — while trying to create value, for everyone.
The Place — The Land of the Bone
Casa Brecceto farms roughly three hectares of vineyards and olives, owned and rented, in the Southern Apennines — mountain viticulture, the vines often above 650 metres, where summers stay cool and winters are rigid, and harvest can run into November, sometimes after a snowfall. The soils are a mosaic: multicoloured clays, sandy rocks rich in marine deposits, good organic matter, abundant gravel in places. They call it the Terra dell'Osso — the land of the bone — and console themselves for its depopulation with the gifts of its fertile earth and the great beauty of its landscape.
Organic + Biodynamic Practice
The farming combines organic practice — copper, sulphur, clay, plant extracts — with biodynamic preparations 500K and 501 distributed across the vineyards and olive grove. Around 20 percent of the grapes come from local growers whom the collective follows directly in the field before buying.
Snow Before Harvest's End
Picking into November, occasionally after snow: the extreme altitude turns the Sannio-Irpinia calendar upside down, stretching ripening into early winter. The result is acidity and aromatic definition that lowland Campania cannot buy.
A Mosaic of Clays
Multicoloured clays, marine sands, marl, gravel: the Sella di Ariano is where the geology of two Apennine slopes changes hands, and the vineyard floors record it. Complex ground, complex wines — the equation the collective has bet on for twenty years.
Farming Against Abandonment
Depopulation and abandonment are the diseases of the Apennines, say the borderlanders themselves. Every recovered parcel — and Casa Brecceto works sites others left — is a small resistance; the landscape's great beauty is their consolation and their argument.
Winemaking — Spontaneous, Manual, Unhurried
The cellar creed has not changed since the Arajani days: the grapes have always fermented spontaneously, with minimal sulphites added only at bottling; the work is primarily manual, without any special cellar technology. Wines age in amphora, stainless steel or wood, chosen by vintage and variety — the vessel follows the wine, not the fashion.
The whites show the house touch: Sassafrass, a Greco macerated seven days on the skins in open steel vats without temperature control, then aged six months between terracotta amphora and wood, and four more in bottle — no clarification, no filtration. It is mountain Greco with texture and nerve, from vineyards at 450 metres on clay and limestone.
Everything stays deliberately small — about 8,500 bottles across eight or nine wines. Direct sales at the estate and at fairs, a small agent network, nothing in supermarkets: the distribution stays as human-scaled as the cellar. Twenty years of quiet experimentation mean the current range arrived fully formed — the learning happened in the backwoods, out of sight.
The Wines — A Little Bit of Irpinia, Bottled
Eight or nine wines of mountain Irpinia: the corsair Aglianico Pitatza, the skin-contact Greco Sassafrass, and a supporting cast of Fiano, Coda di Volpe, Piedirosso and Sciascinoso — spontaneous, barely sulphured, vessel by vintage.
Pitatza
Aglianico — the corsair wineThe founding wine: pure Aglianico from home-grown grapes, rigorously selected, long-aged — a 'vino corsaro' originally distributed only through self-managed social spaces. Twenty-plus years in the making, it is the collective's idea of Irpinia's red: mountain-grown, uncompromising, quietly political.
Sassafrass
Greco, macerated — skin-contact whiteThe white manifesto: 100 percent Greco, spontaneous fermentation in open steel vats with seven days on the skins, then six months between terracotta amphora and wood, four more in bottle — unfined, unfiltered. Mountain Greco with grip, perfume and a long memory.
Ariano Rosso & the Range
Fiano, Coda di Volpe, Piedirosso, SciascinosoThe rest of the atlas: eight or nine wines spanning Irpinia's native set, aged in amphora, steel or wood as each vintage asks — the borderland's full palette, drawn from abandoned parcels and twenty-year friendships with the farmers who kept them.
Legacy — Value, for Everyone
Casa Brecceto's first legacy is the rescue of the abandoned vineyard. Twenty years of working secluded, half-forgotten mountain sites did preservation work no institution funded — the backwoods of Irpinia kept in production by friends who believed the land was worth more than its market price.
The second is a social model of wine. From Pitatza's social-space circuit to today's collective structure — friends, family, and followed growers — the estate insists wine can create value 'for everyone': the grower, the village, the drinker. In a depopulating Apennine, that sentence is a programme.
The third is memory honoured in the present tense. Oto Tortorella, who dreamed the Arajani in 2001 and died in 2020, is present in every bottle the collective releases — proof that a wine project can be an act of friendship sustained across decades, and that the borderland's thresholds lead somewhere after all.