The Agricultural farm Masserie Maresca runs lands of two homesteads, one located in Ottava Piccola (Masseria Caggiani) and the other one located near Ostuni (Masseria Grottone), ,in Apulia (Italy).
Here the lands run by the Agricultural Farm are arable lands and can be used to cultivate olive groves.
The landscape context is typical of the initial part of the hillside of Murgie where, perpendicular to the sea, the typical “lame” mark these small hills. Plateaus and sloping lands alternate, the first ones are mostly arable lands (used for olive groves) the others are characterized by typical vegetation of the Mediterranean scrub (quercus ilex, olea europaea sylvestris, fraxinus ornus, spartium junceum, calycotome spinosa, capparis spinosa, myrtus communis, arbutus unedo, pistacia lentiscus,...) .
In this landscape context the area run by the agricultural farm Maresca results in being quite interesting because, due to the responsible farming practices for the safeguard of the environment and the maintenance of biotypes, along years vegetation and wildlife heritage typical of the Mediterranean scrub has increased and nowadays it covers a considerable part of the property.
As a matter of fact it has developed a real ecological reticulum that not only increases the environment value of the location but helps developing organic farming practices carried out by the Farm (such as the fight against the olive fly enabling the starlings’ repopulation).
The farm is organic farming certified (ITA-BIO006-PR0653). Ploughing is done twice a year in order to leave the ground with as much grass as possible.
Olive picking is carried out at color change and exclusively manually between the months of October and November.
Olives are pressed within 48 hours from the harvesting using the traditional method at low temperature; afterwards oil is allowed to settle for almost a month and then filtered and bottled.
All oil production and bottling phases undergo the regulations of P.D.O. Colline di Brindisi .
The olive groves are made of almost 2000 olive trees (cultivar ogliarola salentina, nardo’, leccino) with an irregular planting pattern.
It is surrounded by Mediterranean scrub and by variable height dry walls and characterized by the presence of a large number of millennial-old olive trees of unrivalled beauty.
Some of them have more than 8mt of circumference (diameters is above 2,5m) and are identified after the local traditional wording as “Patron Gennaro” : an awesome example of 8,10m of circumference.
These trees have been marked to be inserted in the regional list of monumental olive trees.
The Masseria built between 1812 and 1860 is an agricultural complex a few miles away from Ostuni. dipped in 40 acres of centenary olive trees and Mediterranean scrub: a natural context of extraordinary richness.
All buildings of the Homestead are historical and made of stones; they are composed by a main 2-level building, a straw shack for animals, an oven, a barn and a rural chapel. From the homestead you can view the sea looking toward North and toward West the historical center of Ostuni. Looking toward the sea, not too far from these buildings, there is a wonderful stone made ‘iazzo’ (pet run), a small auxiliary building made of stone and, more distant, the ruin of a ‘trullo’ (cylindrical house with a conical roof) or ‘casedda’ built with dry stones for which we only have got the inferior part.
Today the estate hosts a luxury farm-resort with 10 rooms, a garden, a swimming-pool, a patio and a solarium.
The orignal features have been kept in addition to the realization of new expressly contemporary elements that are discreetly placed next to the main structure.
Expansion has enabled to build services in the rooms at ground level without modifying the existing structure.
The new building, placed in a position not visible from the main entrance, thanks to a high dry stone wall, doesn’t change the overall perception of the historical structure.
Interiors are intentionally bare and just cleansed. Nature with its mighty and thousand-year old olive trees in the surrounding area is the real treasure. Minimal design for furniture, local finishing material as the Trani stone are the frame.
