La Sibilla is a fifth-generation Di Meo family estate in Bacoli, on the Tyrrhenian rim of the Campi Flegrei west of Naples, where ungrafted Falanghina and Piedirosso grow inside the Parco Monumentale di Baia. Wines age in Roman aqueduct cisterns built to feed the imperial fleet stationed at Bacoli's Piscina Mirabilis, on the same volcanic ground the Di Meo line, nicknamed the Spigoni, has worked since the early 1800s.
Campania
Bookable experiences, curated by our editors. External booking where marked.
Vineyard walk on the Baia hill from the new Piedirosso plot down to the Cruna DeLago parcel, a tour of the Roman aqueduct cisterns that hold the cellar, and a tasting of the Tradizione line led by the Campi Flegrei Falanghina. Bookable Friday or Saturday morning, around an hour, by appointment via the request form on the official site.
Book this experienceThe same vineyard and cistern tour, with a tasting that adds the single-vineyard Cruna DeLago Falanghina from the Selezione tier on top of the Tradizione bottlings. Useful if you want to taste the difference the older lees rest and the cooler exposure above Lake Lucrino make to the same Falanghina Flegrea grape.
Book this experienceFull flight across all three lines, ending with the Ricerca tier and the Passio Falanghina passito. The most useful visit for tasters who want to understand La Sibilla's range from the everyday Campi Flegrei Falanghina to the late-harvest experiments. Booking goes through the request form on lasibillavini.it/accoglienza.
Book this experienceVineyard walk on the Baia hill from the new Piedirosso plot down to the Cruna DeLago parcel, a tour of the Roman aqueduct cisterns that hold the cellar, and a tasting of the Tradizione line led by the Campi Flegrei Falanghina. Bookable Friday or Saturday morning, around an hour, by appointment via the request form on the official site.
Book this experienceThe cellar is dug into the Roman aqueduct that once carried water from the Apennines down to the Piscina Mirabilis, the cistern at Bacoli that supplied the imperial fleet at Misenum. Constant temperature and a humid microclimate behind the tuff walls let the Falanghina rest in bottle without temperature control, the same engineering benefit the Romans designed into the structure two thousand years ago. The vineyards climb the hill of Baia immediately above, between the houses of the modern town and the Parco Monumentale di Baia, the archaeological park that contains what is left of the imperial bath complex.The Di Meo presence on this land predates La Sibilla as a brand. The family nickname Spigoni, ears of wheat, dates from the period when grain came before vines. The first Luigi Di Meo carried wine for local nobility by mule in the early 1800s. His son Pasquale bought the first parcel of land at the end of the nineteenth century. In 1938 the Italian state expropriated the property over the archaeological remains beneath it, then granted the family the right to plant vineyards within the protected zone, which is why the present rows are interlaced with Roman walls and opus reticulatum. The current Luigi Di Meo founded the modern azienda and bottled the first labelled vintage in 1993, with his wife Restituta and their three sons Vincenzo, Salvatore and Mattia now running the cellar and the vineyards together.The estate works two grapes from the Campi Flegrei DOC, Falanghina Flegrea for the whites and Piedirosso for the reds, both planted on their own roots. The Phlegraean soils are sandy, basaltic and deep enough that phylloxera never colonised the area, so vine material has not been grafted onto American rootstock as it has nearly everywhere else in Europe. Some of the parcels on the Baia hill carry vines older than sixty-five years. The single-vineyard whites in the Selezione tier come from the Cruna DeLago plot above Lake Lucrino and from the older Vigna Madre and Domus Giulii vineyards inside the archaeological perimeter.Three lines move from drinkable to age-worthy. The Tradizione bottlings, led by the Campi Flegrei Falanghina, are built for the salt and seafood of the Bay of Naples table. The Selezione tier, with the Cruna DeLago white at its centre, lifts the same Falanghina into a longer fermentation and a few years of bottle. The Ricerca line, currently a Falanghina passito called Passio, is where the family experiments with later harvest, longer rest and more time in the cisterns.Tastings happen in the cellar by appointment on Friday and Saturday mornings. The visit walks down through the vineyards from the new Piedirosso plantings to the Cruna DeLago parcel, then into the Roman cisterns themselves before sitting down to taste. Three flights are offered, from a short orientation to the Tradizione range up to the full set including the Selezione and Ricerca bottlings. Bacoli is on the Cumana railway out of Naples and the cellar is four hundred and fifty metres from Fusaro station, which is the simplest way to arrive without driving the Phlegraean coast.
Editorially verified by ItalianWines.co.uk.
Plate I · CAMPANIA
La Sibilla's current bottle selection is easiest to understand through Falanghina.
1 wine 
Tastings
Tours
Accommodation
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