Piedirosso

Piedirosso is the only one of our four grapes that also grows here, on the Sorrento peninsula. It is also the one with the oldest ancestry: it appears in a book written in the very year of the eruption that buried Pompeii.

The grape

Campanians call it per' 'e palummo, pigeon's foot, for the bright red colour of the stalk, which recalls a pigeon's leg. It is the region's second most widely planted black grape, immediately after Aglianico.

It grows where the volcano is: the Campi Flegrei, where it is the dominant variety, the slopes of Vesuvius, Ischia, Capri. And it belongs to the Penisola Sorrentina Rosso DOC — which is to say it is grown right here, on the hills behind you.

Its history runs very deep. In the *Naturalis Historia*, Pliny the Elder describes a grape called Columbina, held to be Piedirosso's ancestor: the work was compiled between 78 and AD 79, the year of the eruption that erased Pompeii and Herculaneum — and in which Pliny himself died, trying to rescue people from Misenum. The modern name arrives only in 1909, when the ampelographer Michele Carlucci registered it as Piedirosso.

If you go to Pompeii — half an hour by train from the station below — you are moving through the landscape of that account.

The room

Twenty square metres, a double bed, clean contemporary lines and good natural light. Warm and straightforward.

Fittings: air conditioning, Wi-Fi, flat-screen TV, fridge, safe, wardrobe. Private en-suite bathroom with shower, bidet and hairdryer. Towels and linen provided.

Who it suits

Anyone spending the day out — Pompeii, Vesuvius, Capri — who mainly wants somewhere comfortable to rest their legs at the end of it.

Space and fittings are identical to the other three rooms; the only one with a private balcony is the Aglianico.

Breakfast, self check-in, distances and information about the property are on the rooms page.