Olive Oil and Other Agricultural Products of Puglia
February 8, 2022 According to our Road Scholar guide, Puglia (Apulia) is the chief producer of olive oil in Italy. I confirmed her claim via Google which shared this official statistical report from 2021: "Apulia is the undisputed leading producer of olive oil with over 208,000 tons annually. Calabria and Sicily come next in terms of output with 53,000 and 34,000 tons, respectively. Apulia counted the highest number of olive oil mills, with 904 sites." Lucky for us, a visit to one of those olive oil mills was included in our itinerary--Masseria Brancati. Our host and guide, Corrado, is the seventh generation of his family operating this mill with trees that are up to 2,000 years old. A bitterly cold wind was blowing the day we visited--the only day on our trip during which we had "bad" weather. We were glad to be able to go inside this underground mill which contains evidence of the production tools used by the Romans and later by medieval farmers....