Olive oil – the liquid gold

The centuries old history and tradition of oil manufacturing favour the high-quality oil in Apulia, and no less than 60% of the olive oil is produced in the oil mills of Apulia. From north to south, the landscapes are characterized by endless olive groves and ancient olive trees.

The famous olive oil regions are the province Brindisi and the communities Carovigno, Ceglie, Messapica, Cisternino, Fasano, Ostuni, San Michele, Salentino, San Vito dei Normanni and Villa Castelli.

The most popular olive oils from Apulia are:

• The virgin olive oil Extra Terra di Bari DOP, which originates from the olive groves around the capital Bari. The olive oils from Castel del Monte, Bitondo, Murgia dei Trulli and delle Grotte also belong to this high-quality oil.
• The olive oil “Terra D’Otranto DOP” is produced in the province Lecce and some communities of the province Taranto.
• The virgin olive oil Extra DOP from Dauno olives is produced in the oil mills of the province Foggia.

The delicious bread “Pane di Altamura”

The “Pane di Altamura” is the first bread speciality from Italy which is protected with the quality seal DOP (Denominazione d’Origine Protetta). It is the Italian seal for products with a protected designation of origin. To produce this bread, a special mixture of varied kinds of durum wheat is needed, which is mainly cultivated in the Apulian high plains of the Murgia and the hills of Matera in Basilicata.

Once it was the basic food for the inhabitants of the Murgia. They knead the dough at home and baked it in the bakeries of the small villages. They sealed the dough with a kind of stamp of the head of the family. Its main feature was the long durability, which was important to ensure the food for the farmers for weeks, the duration they were in their farmsteads in the high plains.