Why it matters
The producer
Antonio Pagano launched Fattoria Pagano in 2001 around a declared ambition: to bring Falerno del Massico to an international audience. Falerno is one of the most documented wines in Roman literature, praised by Catullus, Horace, and Martial, grown on the volcanic slopes of the Massico range north of Naples. That it had largely faded from view by the twentieth century is the problem Antonio set out to address.
His son joined the project and the two built a dual-territory estate from the ground up. Casertano supplies the red and white grapes for the estate's core Campania range; Irpinia, further inland and at considerably higher altitude, adds Greco di Tufo and Fiano di Avellino to the mix. The split is not opportunistic. The two territories produce fundamentally different wines, and the range reflects that geography rather than papering over it.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Casertano and Irpinia share a country but not a climate or a soil type.
At Carinola, the estate's main Casertano site sits between 270 and 300 metres above sea level, behind the extinct Roccamonfina volcano and about five kilometres from the coast. The Gulf of Gaeta drives sea breezes across the vineyards through the growing season. Day-night temperature variation is pronounced at this elevation. The soil carries volcanic mineral character inherited from Roccamonfina's eruptions. These conditions shape the Falerno del Massico, the Aglianico Campania IGT, and the organic Falanghina: all three grapes grown here gain aromatic definition from the thermal swing and a mineral edge from the volcanic ground.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
At Carinola, the terraced 13-hectare site requires hand management that flat vineyards do not. The terrace layout slows water runoff, keeps the volcanic soil in place, and maintains the old-vine parcels that give the Falerno its base of depth.
The organic Falanghina is fermented at low temperature in refrigerated stainless-steel tanks and aged in the same vessels. The method keeps the wine's aromatic profile intact: cool fermentation preserves the wildflower and citrus character that the grape produces on volcanic soil, and stainless ageing adds nothing extraneous. The 2024 analytical profile shows 6.1 g/l acidity and 0.1 g/l residual sugar, a genuinely dry white with a bright acid line.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range runs three main lines from Casertano, with Greco di Tufo and Fiano di Avellino produced from the Irpinia parcels.
The Falerno del Massico DOC is a red wine built from Aglianico and Piedirosso grown on the Carinola volcanic terraces. This is the founding wine and the estate's declared purpose. Falerno del Massico is the DOC that covers this stretch of Campanian coast, one of the oldest continuously recognised wine zones in Italy, and the blend of Aglianico and Piedirosso reflects the traditional planting practice of the Massico slopes. It carries the dark fruit and structural grip that volcanic Aglianico produces, with Piedirosso adding a spicier, lighter-bodied counterpoint.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Start with the Falanghina Bio Campania IGT. It is one grape from one territory, made in one vessel type, with an analytical profile that removes uncertainty: 6.1 g/l acidity, 0.1 g/l residual sugar, stainless-steel fermentation and ageing. What arrives in the glass is direct volcanic Campanian white wine, aromatic and dry, with wildflower and citrus on the nose and a mouth-watering acid line through a clean, persistent finish. It shows what the Carinola volcanic soil and the Gulf of Gaeta climate do to a white grape before the complexity of the Falerno range enters the picture.