The Beginnings

In the 1800s, the site where Capocotta now stands was a storage space for equipment used by local fishermen. They would gather here to mend their nets and talk late into the night, eating dry bread with anchovies and drinking Aleatico dell'Elba, a red wine. There were no glasses; instead, they used the pirone (ü pirun), a Spanish-origin glass flask with a long, thin spout. They drank “Catalan-style”, passing it from hand to hand without touching it to their lips—ensuring not a single drop was wasted. It was a place "for sailors only", a phrase that still stands on one of the walls today, as women were not allowed to enter.