Organic Farming in the Cinque Terre

For centuries the villages and vineyards of the Cinque Terre (pronounced “Chink-way Terr-ay”) have been secluded from the rest of the world, allowing a distinct microcosm to develop, a home to vines that produced unique and delicious wines. However, the 20th century brought radical changes to the Cinque Terre and this exceptional heritage was dissipated. The social and economic changes of the past sixty years took their toll, leaving the old to tend the land as the young left to find better wages and a modern lifestyle in tourism or the city.

At the end of the last century, we and a very few others resolved that time-honored traditions had to be saved and preserved. We founded BURANCO, a place of today that carries its distinct and ancient past with it.

When we first discovered the stunning landscapes, Mediterranean climate and the matchless setting of the Cinque Terre, it was love at first sight. We decided to stay, determined to rise to its challenges. “La nostra è una terra avara” (Ours is a grudging land), goes an old saying in the Cinque Terre. This land commands abiding love and loyalty, but for centuries it often rewarded perseverance with hardship and adversity. Steep coastal cliffs, inaccessible to modern machinery, now as then, exact a high price in human toil.

We named our farm BURANCO after the small valley and the stream which runs through a 500-year-old tunnel beneath our lemon grove. This choice of name pledges our commitment to the Cinque Terre and its ancient peasant culture, which we continue to honor through the preservation and rebuilding of our terraces, our dry stone walls and the high quality of our produce, obtained by farming methods that protect the ancient ecosystem of the BURANCO valley.