East of Benevento, the Via Appia leaves the Calore valley and heads into the green, rolling hills of Irpinia on its long way to Brindisi, and near Venticano and Pietradefusi you are travelling over one of its quieter stretches. The road the Romans laid here is mostly lost under fields and later tracks, but the line still guides the landscape, and a short way south-east lie the remains of Aeclanum, near Mirabella Eclano, a Roman town that grew rich on the traffic. Benevento itself was the great junction: from here the original Appia ran over the hills to Venusia and Tarentum, while the Emperor Trajan built a faster route, the Via Traiana, through the plains of Apulia. His triumphal arch, raised in AD 114, still stands in Benevento, its reliefs remarkably sharp.
This is wine country first and foremost. The hills around Venticano and Taurasi produce Taurasi, a powerful red from the Aglianico grape, and the white wines of Greco di Tufo and Fiano di Avellino come from just to the west. Vineyards share the slopes with hazelnut groves and wheat, and small towns perch on the ridges above. Benevento has its own legends: for centuries it was said that witches gathered under a walnut tree by the river, and the town's famous yellow liqueur, Strega, takes its name from them.
The A16 motorway between Naples and Canosa passes close by, but it is the minor roads that make the area worth riding. The old SS7 and the provincial roads between villages roll over the hills in wide, open bends, then tighten into hairpins as they climb into hilltop towns. Traffic is light, surfaces are mixed, and in places landslips have left wavy patches or narrowed lanes, typical of this part of southern Italy. Irpinia is earthquake country, and the 1980 earthquake left deep scars; some villages were rebuilt in new locations, which can make old maps misleading.
Venticano and the other villages here are small, so for fuel and supplies look to San Giorgio del Sannio, a few kilometres north, or Benevento itself, which also offers a fine old centre with a Lombard church, Santa Sofia. Lunch should involve local cheese, cured meats and pasta with a slow-cooked meat ragù, and if you can get a seat in a family trattoria on a Sunday, do so.