THERE IS A VINEYARD IN THE CAMPANIA REGION THAT IS STILL GROWN JUST LIKE THE ETRUSCANS HAD DONE, CALLED THE “AIR VINE”. IT’S THE ASPRINIO PDO IN AVERSA, WHERE VINES REACH HEIGHTS OF 15 METERS, CLIMBING ON POPLAR TREES THAT ARE THEIR GUARDIANS

The Vitis vinifera is a climbing vine, as everyone, even newcomers to the wine world, knows. What not everybody knows, though, is that the first people to cultivate vines on the Italian Peninsula were the Etruscans, who had cultivated the Vitis Vinifera Sylvestris starting in the 8th century BC, before the Greeks, and then the Romans spread the Vitis Vinifera Sativa, and its many varieties.
Etruscan wines produced on the coastal areas of Tuscany, Lazio and Campania thus became products for export to southern Gaul and Catalonia, as findings of Etruscan amphorae dating from the seventh to the early fifth century BC, have revealed.

From the first Etruscan expansion up to present day, in the area called Agro Aversano, the grapevine is married to the Poplar tree, the so-called tree line cultivation, which is quite a spectacular agricultural landscape, and very different from the Neapolitan one, which is characterized by the low strain cultivation of the vine, called shrub cultivation.
The most obvious example and the most famous in the Campania region, is the Asprinio grape of Aversa, "air vine", the highest vine in Italy, grown using the same techniques the Etruscans used and the area is known as "Tree lined Aversana”.
The grapevines reach up to 15 meters in height climbing up Poplar trees that are also their guardians, and the rows are far enough apart from each other to leave room for other crops. So, between Cesa, Succivo and Gricignano di Aversa, a wine from ancient history has been produced and just recently rediscovered in the "Journey to discover the Atellana flavors and traditions in the footsteps of the Vines Married to the Poplars", and protected by a development project the Campania region has funded.