Puglian brothers Luca and Giuseppe Esposito released their first commercially produced Le Ferre olive oil following the 2000 harvest. Based in the town of Castellaneta, the birthplace of silent movie star Rodolfo Valentino, they were the first in Puglia to produce a single-variety oil from the Coratina olive variety. Giuseppe Esposito is one of the youngest ‘mastri oleari’, or master oil makers, in Italy. The brothers have their own olive groves and buy in olives from other high-quality growers, most of whom use Luca and Giuseppe’s agronomist father as a consultant.
The Esposito family own 50 hectares of olive groves at 230 – 290 metres above sea level. Their land is well-ventilated with a cool breeze moderating the long, hot, Mediterranean summers, enabling the olives to reach optimum ripeness. They have a few hectares of ‘alberi secolari’ (century-old trees) in Le Ferre, a district so named because of the high levels of iron (ferro) in the soil.
