Masseria Mita and the surrounding trulli’s
Today was one of the best days so far this trip. It started out a bit cloudy and rainy and remained that way for most of the day, but the weather in no way affected our nice day. One of the women who works here, Maria, owns a true Masseria (fortified farm) with ancient (seculara) olive trees, a vineyard, and a private orange, mandarin, Clementine and lemon grove. Maria met us at the hotel at 10:30 this morning and we followed her for about ½ an hour south east towards Crispiano where we eventually arrived at a beautiful gate where we turned in and immediately saw a vineyard on the right and an olive tree grove on the left and straight ahead. We followed her down the pathway where her husband (who works on the farm everyday) was waiting. The name of their company is Masseria Mita and in fact they work here year round, but they don’t live on the farm (they live about 20 minutes away in Martina Franca). We had assumed we were just going to taste some wine and olive oil and be off in an hour; however, we were very incorrect and only after 4 hours were we on our way. So when we got there, they gave us a tour (their 10 year old son was there too) of the olive groves with the ancient trees and they showed us the oldest tree on the farm probably dating back to the 1600’s when the farm was created. The trees were beautiful and had enormous trunks that were just amazing. After we walked around the groves, we went into one of the old farm houses where they used to make the wine and we were explained the process of how they pressed the grapes and how the wine traveled into barrels underneath the farm to stay until they were ready to drink. We then went into their private garden which had orange, mandarine, Clementine, rose bushes and lemon trees. We smelled the fruit and it smelled delicious, so they picked some fruit for us and put them in a bag- we have about 5 pounds of citrus that we have to eat in the next week before we come home! They taste wonderful. Finally, we went into their farm house, which they now use for entertaining in the summertime and have invited us back to stay there and to have meals with them under the olive trees in the summertime. There was a platter of bread with tomatoes, olive oil and salt (which we have found out is different here than anywhere else) and some vino rosso (red wine). So we ate and talked for a while and it was so good, so we ended up buying a fair amount of the olive oil and the wine to take home. They also showed us their old wood oven (like a brick oven) that they still use to cook with outside of their house. So after 4 hours of spending time with them, we left and followed them back to Martina Franca where they showed us the best specialty store to buy provincial items, but it was closed. Oh well, we don’t need to spend any more money. So we drove around a little bit more and I took some more Trulli photos and then we came home. I should also mention that today is a large religious holiday here celebrating St. Maria. I don’t know anything else about it, except that everything is closed and our hotel is packed full of Italians eating lunch and dinner here! We have decided not to partake in the expensive price fixe meal and eat cheese and bread in the room for dinner- yummy! Wish we could bring back some cheese- it’s very good.
Someone has pointed out that he didn’t know what a trullo was when I wrote about them before, so I will clarify what they are now. Trulli’s (plural; trullo, singular) are round, stone houses that were built between the 15th and 18th centuries by everyone in this region. They were built in a certain way so that there was one loose stone on top that they could pull out and their entire house would fall down. They would do this in situations when tax men came to collect money or for other purposes to evade paying and getting into trouble. So after these men had left the premises, they would rebuild their home. Very interesting structures and we will miss them when we leave this region tomorrow morning.
Mom has fallen in love as well. With our car. She hugs every corner, drives quickly, and is becoming an Italian. She will be very sad when she has to part with it next Friday.
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