To make her wine, Alice Iacono ferments grapes in palmenti, the old concrete vats that islanders once used to collect rainwater. There is no temperature control, no added yeast, and no sulfur. What comes out is roughly three thousand bottles a year from a sliver of terraced volcanic land on Ischia, in the Bay of Naples.
Backstory
Bajola began with Francesco Iacono, a native of Ischia and an oenologist who returned to the island to vinify by traditional methods. His daughter Alice, born in Riva del Garda and trained as a theatrical actress, grew up among the vines and took over the project. Her mother, Antonella Pani, is a Florentine art restorer, and the family's careful, hands-on sensibility runs through the wines.
The Region
Ischia is a volcanic island off the coast of Campania in southern Italy. Its steep slopes are terraced and held in place by dry stone walls called "parracine," built from blocks of the island's green tuff. The maritime climate and volcanic soils give the wines salinity and tension.
Vineyards & Farming
The estate is tiny, around 0.7 hectares planted at roughly 100 meters of elevation on terraces lined with those parracine walls. Farming is organic and biodynamic, and the vines are trained by Guyot. Indigenous Campanian varieties dominate, with white grapes for the skin-contact wines and Aglianico for the reds.
Winemaking
The cellar work is deliberately archaic. Grapes ferment spontaneously with native yeasts in the old palmenti vats, the white wines macerating on their skins to make orange wine. Aging continues in the same concrete vessels for at least six months, with no temperature control. The wines are unfined, unfiltered, and made without added sulfites.
The Wines
The flagship is Bajola Bianco, a volcanic skin-contact white. The lineup also includes special bottlings such as "In Tiano," aged in terracotta amphora, alongside small-production reds from Aglianico. Each cuvee reflects a single growing season on the terraces, named in some vintages for the leaf, or "foglia," of the vine's year.
