In the hills around Castelvenere, in the province of Benevento, a couple who spent two decades tending other people's land finally planted a flag of their own. I Pentri is the work of Dionisio Meola and Lia Falato, and the wines speak in the unhurried voice of people who know exactly which grape belongs where.
Backstory
Dionisio and Lia founded I Pentri in 2002, after roughly twenty years working the vines and soils of inland Campania. The name reaches back to the Pentri, an ancient Samnite tribe of the Apennine interior, a nod to the deep history of this part of southern Italy. Today their son Alessandro works alongside them, carrying the project into a second generation.
The Region
The estate sits in the Sannio, the inland zone of Benevento that has long been one of Campania's most important sources of native white grapes. Vineyards are spread across the communes of Castelvenere, Guardia Sanframondi and Vitulano, on terraced hillsides at the foot of Monte Taburno, a cooler, higher landscape than the coastal Campania most drinkers know.
Vineyards and Farming
The couple works around ten hectares of terraced vineyards planted to Falanghina, Fiano and Malvasia among the whites, and Piedirosso and Aglianico among the reds. Farming is natural: spontaneous ground cover between the rows, no synthetic fertilizers, no herbicides and no chemical pesticides. The emphasis is on manual work and minimal intervention, letting each native variety show its own character.
Winemaking
In the cellar the approach stays restrained. Fermentations run on the grapes' own wild yeasts, and the wines are bottled without fining or filtration. The goal is clarity and site expression rather than makeup, a serious case for what inland Campania's traditional grapes can do.
The Wines
Two bottlings anchor the range. Flora is their Falanghina, a site-driven white made to show the grape with restraint and freshness rather than weight. Kerres is their Piedirosso, the wine that has drawn the most attention in the Italian press for showing this often overlooked red's capacity for balance and nuance. Aglianico and Fiano round out the picture from these high Sannio hills.
