OUR HANDS IN CONTACT WITH NATURE
Agriculture is based on love for the land, a strong passion for a job but, above all, the desire to carry out a project that has taken a fundamental place in our life.
HISTORY
The farm of the Castriota family has almost two centuries of history, it was born in 1846, at the behest of Luigi Castriota, former landowner and of the homonymous building located in Alezio, who acquired the Bardoscia farm located in Galatina and the land to it adjacent.
The accounting books of the time tell us of flourishing crops widely diversified from each other; in fact we find Negroamaro and Malvasia vines, wheat, vegetables and vegetables of all kinds, figs and almonds, precious Levantine tobaccos, and last but most important of all, 77 hectares of olive groves.
The fulcrum of the property is the patronal villa, a place of rest from the summer heat for the family, which over the years will undergo changes and extensions, as well as the company, which will continue to evolve with the purchase of machinery and premises preparatory to production and will be equipped also an oil mill for the processing of olives, avant-garde for the time, equipped with modern presses and a steam locomotive for moving the mills.
A company that has gone through the decades remaining linked to the family events of Luigi Castriota’s heirs, changing its name and re-appropriating what was the name that the toponymy assigned to that area, thus becoming Masseria Lo Prieno, a company that over the years have always carried on what is the narration of a love project.
THE FARM TODAY
The years and the many heirs obviously led to the fragmentation of the original possessions, however today, the passion and stubbornness that distinguish Salvatore Castriota, have ensured that that dream did not stop. In addition to being the engine of the restoration of the family palace, and its transformation into a splendid Charming House, he strongly wanted to take back the projects of his ancestor Luigi, doing it in first person.
He returned, with not a few difficulties, to reassemble the pieces of his history of him, starting from the roots, of those olive trees that have brought so much prestige to his family’s business for years.
The farm today includes 15 hectares mainly invested with olives of the Favolosa variety, and is dedicated to the production of oil with a high percentage of naturalness. A recently planted semi-intensive olive grove with 4000 trees.
Technology and tradition meet in a place where biodiversity is protected and increased.
OUR OIL
The magic linked to the cycle of the seasons finds its peak in the olive grove between October and December, when the olives have reached a maturity that allows them to be harvested.
Within twelve hours of their harvest, the olives are delivered to the mill, a timeliness that allows the acidity of the oil to be kept low, the leaves are removed and washed; through granite millstones, the olives slowly begin their transformation.
Once ground, the resulting paste is mixed at a controlled temperature, separated from the water and is ready in turn to leave the pomace to become unfiltered extra virgin olive oil, our pride.
After decanting, the oil from the mill arrives in our cellars in stainless steel barrels that help us to preserve all its characteristics and aromas, and is bottled in limited quantities according to availability.
A slow process, made up of love and dedication, made up of traditions that are handed down so that everything, while evolving, remains the same as it once was.