Tenuta Venterra was born from an idea by Angelina, who, in the early 1990s, fell in love with a 130-hectare stretch of land lying completely abandoned in the countryside around Taranto. Driven by a desire to restore to the land the beauty and life that time had taken away, she decided to purchase the entire estate and bring it back to life.
Although she was a professional with no background in agriculture, she involved her husband and children – who were also professionals – in a project that was completely outside the bounds of traditional farming: practising organic farming with respect for nature, following its rhythms and preserving its balance.
At the start of the new millennium, that vision began to take root. The land was prepared and 64,000 olive trees of nine different cultivars were planted, supported by largely underground irrigation systems designed to combine efficiency with respect for the landscape.
Alongside the olive trees, a fully automated oil mill has been established, powered by a 100 kW photovoltaic system and a heating system that utilises olive pomace from the processed olives. Inside the oil mill, the temperature of the rooms is carefully controlled throughout the changing seasons, and the oil is stored in stainless-steel tanks, protected by an inert gas system, so that it can retain over time the characteristics bestowed upon it by the land and the olive trees.
What began for Angelina as a bold choice has, over the years, become a true philosophy of life; thanks also to the collaboration of specialist professionals. High-quality agriculture has become her creed, and the pursuit of quality a promise to be renewed with every harvest.
Today, Tenuta Venterra brings the world’s only Terre Tarantine PDO, encapsulating in every drop the excellence and identity of a land, the passion of a family and a story meant to be told.