The company and the Cupa valley story in Salento
The companyTerre dell'Olmo is the fruit of a life spent in the fields made of sunrises and sunsets among the olive trees, hot summers among the ears of wheat and wind blowing through the branches. The lives of men whose furrows on their faces are almost symbiotic with those of the earth.
The company has antique origins and some of the company properties used nowadays have been run by our family since the late 1800s. My father Pompilio, a tenacious and tireless guide, still personally takes care of the land and transmits his farmer culture to the new generations, inherited in turn from my grandfather Oronzo and my great-grandfather Pasquale.
The entire cultivated area is mainly located in the municipality of Campi Salentina and surrounding towns(Guagnano and Salice Salentino)in the centre of the Salento isthmus in that area, known as the "Valle della Cupa", or the Cupa valley, consisting of a slight karst depression on the slopes of the Serre di Sant'Elia.
It is precisely the alluvial nature of the soil that determined the exceptional fertility of this basin, inevitably contributing to write the history of this territory, once completely covered by the holm oak woods that once constituted the so-called "Foresta Oritana".
It was precisely in these woods, during the Saracen invasion of 926 A.D., that the ancient populations of the nearby 5 farmhouses (Afra, Ainoli, Bagnara, Firmigliano e Terenzano) found a shelter, they were located along theancient Appia-Traianea road which was built and rebuilt many times by the Roman emperors to promote trade with the East. In fact, in order to defend themselves better, the inhabitants of these ancient farmhouses abandoned that primary road in the early Middle Ages - which had become a breeding ground for crusaders on their way toOtranto to embark on their way to the Holy Land, as well as for devastating barbarian hordes - and gathered at the bottom of the fertile valley, rich in spring water, thus founding the original nucleus of the future community of Campi Salentina.
The constant mitigating action of the Adriatic and Ionian seas, both not far away, also gives our territory a unique microclimate, characterized by particularly mild temperatures in winter and a strong and continuous sunshine in summer. Also for this peculiar climatic situation, the agricultural vocation of the area is ancient. In fact, already in 1788 Ferdinand IV of Bourbon, King of Naples, decreed that the prices of cereals and wine were established in Campi Salentina, where a very active cereals and livestock fair has been held since 1747 . This fair is still held on the third Sunday of October, in conjunction with the religious celebrations in honour of our Lady of Mercy. It is no coincidence that the coat of arms of Campi Salentina represents an open sheaf of wheat, testifying to the same fertility and abundance of wheat that have always caused the town to be known as "the granary of the Terra d'Otranto".
Ennio Montinaro
