This Apuglian treasure is created with passion

A bit of a different farm blog today after speaking with the passionate Savino Giannella, owner of a family olive grove that tells a story of generational olive growing in a small Apulgian village.

After a quick tasting of this years spectacular extra virgin olive oil, he cant help but let his passion for his olive trees, local traditions, village life and family shine through. ‘I remember before the big mills and separators, we used to skim the olive oil off the top of water using big steel plates’.  Every year, Savino harvests the same trees that his ancestors were 200 years ago, growing 3 main varieties across roughly 600 trees. He tells me that this is by no means his grove, but his family’s; this becomes evident when running me through this year’s harvest figures, close family and cousins account for 40% of consumption.

 Other than pruning, these trees receive no chemical cultivation or irrigation. Their production varies year on year quite a lot due to this nature of zero input farming. The summer of 2020 was dry, resulting in a good year, producing 5000Litres of 0.3% acidity, making it In the highest possible quality grade of extra virgin olive oil that there is.

We speak about how Olive oil is not Savino’s main source of income, but rather a passion, ‘a work of love’. This is something that is so evident when we speak to Savino about his hometown of Trinitalopi or his favourite recipe of Panne con pomodoro. These are both things that are built around his extra virgin olive oil and Bella de Cerignola olives.

 We feel privileged to be able to share one family’s passion, heritage and culinary rich history with you.