The Organic Believers, the Healing Farm & the Saline Hills of Vasto
When Giuseppe and Irma Jasci inherited the family farm in the hills above Vasto, Irma was ill in ways the doctors could not explain — and the farm's conversion to organic farming became, in the family's telling, her cure. In 1978, Jasci & Marchesani became one of the first ten certified organic wineries in all of Italy — long before organic was a trend, a label or a market. Three generations later, Donatello and Piera Jasci farm 40 hectares without a single synthetic input, ferment without selected yeasts, and make wines that taste unmistakably of the Sinello Valley's sea air and the clay hills of mid-Vasto.
Origin — 1960s, the Family Farm & the Conversion That Healed
The Jasci family has farmed the hills above Vasto, on the southern coast of Abruzzo, for generations — a story the family tells as one of love, wisdom, heritage and future. In the early 1960s, Pasquale and Maria Jasci turned the family's focus decisively toward grapes and estate wine — row-planted vineyards on the hills rising about 250 metres above the Adriatic, in the perfect habitat created by the constant sea breeze. It was a solid family farm in a region that had not yet imagined an organic anything.
The turning point came when their son Giuseppe Jasci and his wife Irma inherited the winery in the boom years. Irma had been suffering from health problems the doctors could not solve. In the family's telling, the answer was found not in medicine but in the farm: when the land was freed from chemicals, her health problems resolved. Whether one reads it as causation or conviction, the family's response was total. In the late 1970s — when organic farming was practised professionally only abroad — Jasci & Marchesani transformed the entire company to organic methods, and in 1978 received official organic certification, becoming one of the first ten wineries in all of Italy to achieve it.
They were not riding a trend; there was no trend to ride. The decision was personal, practical and permanent — and it has governed every vintage since. For over forty years the policy of the estate has been the same: protection of the environment and the completely natural quality of the wines, with grapes cultivated "only thanks to hard work and organic materials coming from our land."
Today the estate is led by the third generation: Donatello Jasci and his wife Piera. Raised among the vines, Donatello is not merely owner but winemaker, spending most of his days in the cellar directly overseeing production. Under their stewardship the family has quietly become the second-largest single grower in the entire region — while remaining entirely organic across every hectare, a combination almost nobody else in Italy has managed at this scale. The stubbornness the family attributes to its people, the same stubbornness that went organic in 1978, now powers a winery that runs on renewable energy and farms as if the chemicals of the twentieth century had never been invented.
The Place — The Sinello Valley, the Janù Hills & the Adriatic Breeze
The estate's 40 hectares of specialized vineyards — 33 owned and 7 more in sharecropping — are planted in rows on the hills above Vasto, at about 250 metres of altitude, facing the Adriatic. The oldest vines date to 1953. Within that holding, the family farms two clearly distinct terroirs, and the estate's entire range is organized around their difference: the Sinello Valley, whose grapes make saline, savoury white wines, and the clay hills of the mid-Vasto area, which produce the unique and sought-after Montepulciano Janù. Each vineyard is cultivated to suit the grape it grows — all of it organic, all of it estate-grown, none of it bought in.
The Sinello Valley — Where the Whites Taste of the Sea
The Sinello Valley, running inland from the coast south of Vasto, gives the estate's white wines their signature: saline, savoury, shot through with sea air. Trebbiano d'Abruzzo grown here is not the fat, neutral Trebbiano of the textbooks — it is taut, stony and mouthwatering, a white that belongs on the table with the shellfish of the Trabocchi Coast a few kilometres away. The valley's soils and exposure conspire with the constant sweet sea breeze to keep acidity electric and flavours precise.
The Janù Hills — Clay, Exposure & Temperature Range
The secret of Montepulciano Janù lies in the clay soils of the mid-Vasto hills — and above all in the exposure and the temperature range of the site. Warm Adriatic days and cool nights stretch the ripening of Montepulciano into something uniquely perfumed and structured: a red of dark fruit and wild herb, firm tannin and saline length that has made it one of the most sought-after expressions of the variety in southern Abruzzo. It is the estate's flagship — the wine the whole farming philosophy exists to serve.
Vines from 1953, Rows Not Pergolas
The oldest vineyard on the estate was planted in 1953 — vines older than the organic certification, older than the DOC system itself, farmed without chemicals since their seventh decade. Unusually for Abruzzo, the vineyards are planted in rows rather than pergola: a choice that sacrifices the pergola's shade for even ripening, airflow and healthy fruit without sprays. The rows also make the vineyards fully workable by the family alone — every vine independently cultivated by their own hands.
A Winery That Runs on Sun & Wind
The winery operates with renewable energy, completing a circle the family began drawing in 1978: farm the land without poisoning it, power the cellar without depleting it, and let the entire production chain stay organic from soil to bottle. It is, in the family's own framing, the meeting of "strong traditions and constant research" — an estate that modernized every system except the one that matters most: how the vines are farmed.
Winemaking — Clean, Simple & True to the Farming
Donatello's approach in the cellar is, in the words of those who import the wines, consistent with his farming: clean and simple. All grapes are estate-grown and organically farmed; the wines see little or no oak and carry a purity of flavour that is rare — vessels range from stainless steel to concrete to oak barrels as each wine requires, and selected yeasts are never used. Spontaneous fermentation, gentle handling, patience in the cellar: nothing between the grape and the glass that the vineyard did not put there.
This is not minimalism as dogma but as logic. If the farming is organic and the sites are this distinct — saline valley whites, clay-hill reds — then the cellar's only job is to keep the map readable. Stainless steel preserves the brilliant, saline character of the Sinello whites; concrete gives the Cerasuolo its supple texture; older barrels, where used, round the Janù without flavouring it. The vessel follows the vineyard, never the fashion.
The family's stated creed could not be plainer: they take care of the land's fruit "just like a loving mother" — as Lucia would have done with her own children — and they believe the "typical stubbornness of our people, combined with the sweet sea breeze that creates a perfect habitat for vine-growing", is the whole secret. A flawless winemaking process and careful ageing, they say, simply make their wines "the best part of the legacy of our fathers."
It is tempting to contrast this sincerity with the mystique of the region's more secretive estates. But Jasci & Marchesani's answer is the more radical one: open the cellar door, show everything, and let forty years of certified organic farming do the talking. Tastings at the cantina in Vasto pour the trio of Trebbiano, Cerasuolo and Montepulciano — the same wines, made the same way, since before most of the world's organic wineries existed.
The Wines — From the Saline Trebbiano to the Sought-After Janù
The range of Jasci & Marchesani is deliberately focused: Trebbiano d'Abruzzo, Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo and Montepulciano d'Abruzzo — the classic trio of the region — plus the estate's flagship single-vineyard Montepulciano Janù. All are certified organic from estate-grown grapes, fermented without selected yeasts, and made with little or no oak. These are wines of purity and place — the kind that taste of sea air, clay hills and forty years of stubborn conviction.
Jasci & Marchesani Trebbiano d'Abruzzo DOC Organic
White — Sinello Valley, VastoThe estate's saline white — Trebbiano grown in the Sinello Valley and made, like everything here, from organically farmed estate fruit with no selected yeasts and little or no oak. Light, stony and savoury, with a mouthwatering sea-air snap that makes it the natural partner of the shellfish of the Trabocchi Coast. It is Trebbiano as the Adriatic intended — clean, precise and quietly characterful, from vines farmed without chemicals since before most of Italy's organic wineries existed. Certified organic. No selected yeasts.
Jasci & Marchesani Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo Organic
Rosato — Vasto, ChietiAbruzzo's great rosato, made the Jasci way: Montepulciano from organic vines, spontaneous fermentation, gentle handling — juicy, bright and food-driven, with the structure and savoury edge that make Cerasuolo the region's everyday luxury. In a land where Cerasuolo is drunk by the carafe all summer, this is the version that makes you understand why the style is revered — pure fruit, clean acid, and a mineral finish that speaks of the hills above Vasto. Certified organic. No selected yeasts.
Jasci & Marchesani Montepulciano d'Abruzzo DOC Organic
Red — Vasto, ChietiThe estate's classic red — organic Montepulciano in its honest, unforced form: dark cherry, plum and wild herb, firm but ripe tannin, and the saline length that the sea air gives everything grown on these hills. Little or no oak keeps the fruit front and center; spontaneous fermentation keeps it alive. It is the wine that has anchored the family's tables and export reputation for decades — proof that organic farming, at this scale and this consistency, is not a compromise but a quiet advantage. Certified organic. No selected yeasts.
Jasci & Marchesani "Janù" Montepulciano d'Abruzzo
Single Vineyard Red — Mid-Vasto Hills, ChietiThe estate's flagship and most sought-after wine — Montepulciano from the clay hills of the mid-Vasto area, where exposure and temperature range conspire to create something unique. The secret, the family says, is the diurnal swing of the Vasto hills: warm Adriatic days building dark, perfumed fruit; cool nights preserving the acidity and structure that let Janù age with grace. More concentrated and individual than the estate's classic Montepulciano, it is the wine that proves what organic farming on great clay sites can do with Abruzzo's great red grape. Certified organic. Limited.
Legacy — Forty Years of Organic Before It Was a Word Anyone Used
Jasci & Marchesani's legacy begins with a date: 1978. In that year, while the rest of Italian wine was racing toward industrialization — higher yields, chemical farming, new oak, global varieties — one family farm above Vasto did the opposite, and let itself be certified for it. They were among the first ten wineries in Italy to carry organic certification, at a time when the word had no market value whatsoever. The conviction came first; the certificate simply made it official.
The legacy is also scalable, and this is what makes the estate genuinely important rather than merely charming. Today Jasci & Marchesani farms 40 hectares entirely organically and stands as the second-largest single grower in the region — a standing demonstration that certified organic farming is not a boutique hobby for tiny estates but a complete, commercial, multi-generational system. In an era when "organic at scale" is still dismissed as impossible, this family has been doing it, profitably and permanently, for nearly half a century.
And the legacy is human. The founding story — Irma's illness, the farm's conversion, her recovery — grounds the entire organic movement in something older than marketing: the ancient, self-evident logic that a farm free of poisons is better for the people who live on it. When the family says they take care of the land's fruit like a loving mother, they are describing a philosophy of farming that predates certification, regen-ag and natural wine alike.
Today, third-generation Donatello and Piera Jasci continue the work their grandfather began in the 1960s — running a winery on renewable energy, farming without a single synthetic input, fermenting without selected yeasts, and welcoming visitors to taste the trio of Trebbiano, Cerasuolo and Montepulciano in the cantina above Vasto. Alongside the mystique of Valentini, the struggle of Tiberio and the mixed-farm model of De Fermo, Jasci & Marchesani offers the fourth pillar of the region's modern identity: organic farming not as rebellion, but as inheritance — kept, certified and passed on, from a family that believed before it was fashionable and never stopped.