Pitino Agricolo
110 acre historic farm in its own valley located at Borgo Monticole, Le Marche, Italy.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Carbon Farming, Forest Garden.
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Its been a long time coming but our extra virgin olive oil is now in the UK and available to order online. Click the product links below to find out more!
Why our oil is so special
Our olives
Le Marche has the most recognised autochthonous olive cultivars of any region in the world, and we benefit from their quality and distinctiveness.
Our farm is home to over 70 ancient olive trees, and over 2,000 newly planted trees—a mix of rare local varieties Orbetana, Piantone, Coronina, Mignola, Raggia and Raggiola cultivars. We are still discovering more around the farm and bringing them back to life.
Farming
Our farm was abandoned in the 1960s and the valley it sits in uncultivated for two decades. With no other farms or residences upstream and our own water basin, the olives couldn’t be grown in a more unspoilt and pristine environment. We have had our BIO certification visit in Spring, and are now awaiting full ‘Certificazione Agricoltura Biologica’ status.
In 2023, we used a fully organic and very low strength bordeaux mixture after a heavy reform prune on our ancient trees, but that’s it — we don’t plan on ever using more treatment, even organic, on our trees or olives. We are naturally well-protected from olive fly and other pests by our cold winters and biodiverse surroundings, and our cultivars have proved resistant to diseases such as knot or peacock spot. We don’t irrigate our mature trees, and we only use gravity to irrigate our young trees from our own stream.
Harvesting
We handpick and press our olives between late-September and mid-October. All our olives are picked either before or at the very early stages of veraison, stored in a cool facility, and pressed within a maximum of 30 hours after harvesting. Picking this early means our milling costs are high — we got just a 12% yield in 2022 — but we believe it’s worth it for the higher polyphenol content and stronger flavour.
Milling
In 2022, we used a local mill with the latest three-phase Pieralisi machinery and with minimal water use. In 2023, we will be using another local mill with a two-phase Pieralisi, ensuring no water-soluble antioxidants get washed away.
Terroir
This year our oil is being certified for the ‘Le Marche’ IGP. With its relatively temperate climate, alkaline soils, and medium-high altitudes, Le Marche has been renowned for quality oil since Roman times. The “Arte dei Ternieri" (1263), regulating Venice’s artisan cheese and oil guild, sanctioned selling "the oil of Marchia" at a premium by virtue of its colour and flavour.
Le Marche IGP oil has the most demanding quality requirements of any registered denomination: < 0.4% acidity, > 200mg/kg polyphenol > 72% oleic and < 9% linoleic.
Our Story
In summer 2021, aged 25 and 27, we decided to up sticks and buy a ruined farm in Italy. Leaving hopes of academic careers behind us, we begun dedicating our time to restoring a valley that had lain abandoned for more than half a decade. Caring for our ancient olive trees, dipping our toes into viticulture and animal husbandry, rediscovering ancient farming practices, and restoring the main farm house and outbuildings have been the mainstays of our first year here. We look forward to sharing the journey with you!
Jerry & Lucie
Help! We Bought a Village, Channel 4
In 2022 we started filming for a new Channel 4 series. The programme follows our journey restoring the farm and nearby hamlet, Borgo Monticole. As well as the fun and foibles of running a farm with no prior experience, you'll learn more about the history of the valley, and meet our neighbours and friends with (sometimes strongly-worded) opinions of their own on the project.
Carbon Farming & Permaculture
Airlines say 'click this button to offset your carbon emissions' but often this just means planting a fir tree and destroying biodiversity in the process. Instead, our Carbon Farming project allows you to invest in planting a local tree varieties that will sink carbon while increasing biodiversity and maintaining the historic significance of an old Italian farm.
While we're just getting started, in our first two years alone we've already planted over 2,000 trees of local ancient varieties and 600 vines of local ancient varieties and built two zero-fuel and zero-solar natural water pumps to pump rainwater back up onto our land and the land of a neighbouring small-scale farmer, keeping the new trees alive.
Our goal is to build on Le Marche's existing agro-diverse culture of small-holder farming. We want to see the region become a global leader in regenerative agriculture, guided by four key principles:
(1) increasing soil fertility,
(2) protecting biodiversity,
(3) prioritising water retention and cleanliness,
(4) promoting soil carbon sequestration.
70
ancient olive trees
1700
kilos of olives
204
litres of Monticole oil