Oliveto Letizia · Nebrodi Mountains, Sicily

Our Story 

Oliveto Letizia sits on the northern slopes of the Nebrodi Mountains of northern Sicily overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea, on land that borders the Parco dei Nebrodi — one of the largest protected forests in Italy. The grove is old. The Minuta trees here are over a hundred years old, their roots deep in the mountain soil — semi-wild, largely left to their own nature, and now in an active process of rejuvenation.

The grove carries the name of the family whose roots are in these mountains. Ignazio Letizia and Nona Antunica. Their land was here. Oliveto Letizia — a different grove, on the same mountain — is named in that spirit: a continuation, not a restoration. The connection is one of place and lineage, not of the same soil underfoot.

The original Letizia farm stands elsewhere on the same mountain — its stone walls and shuttered windows still there, the olive trees still growing at its base. Oliveto Letizia is a different place, chosen for its old Minuta grove, its altitude, and its position within the Nebrodi. The name is a bridge between the two.

On the estate stands an old casale — a traditional Sicilian farmhouse — and the ruins of a Norman watchtower, remnants of the island’s layered history that have watched over this land for centuries. The tower’s silhouette is carried on every LONGIORO bottle, label, and box: a mark of place, and of permanence.

The casale at Oliveto Letizia is being renovated — its stone walls, arched doorway, and terracotta roof returning to life alongside the grove itself. The two restorations are not separate projects. They are the same one.

La Torre — the tower — is a Norman watchtower ruin that stands on the estate. Built during the Norman occupation of Sicily in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, it is one of many such structures that once formed a chain of signal towers across the island’s northern coast. This one has remained on the land, slowly returning to the mountain. It is the oldest thing here. Its silhouette is the mark LONGIORO carries on every bottle, label, and box — not as decoration, but as a statement of where the oil comes from and how long this place has been inhabited and tended.

The name Letizia is carved into the stone steps of the piazza at Capo d’Orlando — the town at the foot of the mountain. Some things do not need to be explained. They simply endure.

This is not a commercial grove. There are no monocultures, no industrial press, no shortcuts. The oil is made the way it has always been made in these mountains — attentively, seasonally, with an understanding that quality is not a feature you add, but a standard you maintain.

The Cultivars

Minuta is not a well-known name outside Sicily. That is part of what makes it remarkable.

Classified as a Slow Food Presidium — a designation reserved for food traditions at genuine risk of disappearing — Minuta is one of the rarest olive cultivars in southern Italy. It produces less fruit than commercial varieties, ripens on its own schedule, and does not respond well to industrial methods. In return, it yields an oil of unusual refinement: delicate, fruity, high in polyphenols, with a character that stands apart from the bold, peppery oils more commonly associated with Sicilian production.

Minuta cannot pollinate itself. Verdello and Biancolilla grow throughout the grove for this reason — pollinators by necessity, contributors by nature. Verdello brings brightness and clean freshness to the oil; Biancolilla adds a soft, buttery roundness that smooths the finish. What begins as a biological requirement becomes, in the press, a more complete and balanced oil than Minuta could produce alone.

The Terroir

The Nebrodi Mountains are not where most people picture Sicilian olive oil coming from. The island’s reputation is built on the sun-baked lowlands of the south — big, bold oils from flat, irrigated groves. The Nebrodi are different.

Known as the green heart of Sicily, the Nebrodi range sits in the island’s north, defined by forest, altitude, and a climate that bears little resemblance to the coast. The summers are dry but not punishing. The winters bring cold that slows the olive’s development, concentrating its compounds and extending the growing season in ways that lower-altitude groves cannot replicate. The result is a fruit that is smaller, denser, and richer in polyphenols than what the plains produce.

The soil is mineral-rich mountain earth — not the sandy coastal soils of commercial Sicilian production. The grove sits within the shadow of the Parco dei Nebrodi, one of the largest protected natural areas in Italy, where the land has not been subject to the agricultural intensification that has reshaped much of the Mediterranean.

This is what terroir means in practice: not a marketing word, but a set of conditions — altitude, climate, soil, biodiversity — that cannot be moved or replicated. The oil tastes like this place because it could only come from this place.

The Harvest

The grove is in active rejuvenation — after more than a century of growth, the Minuta trees are being carefully tended back to their full productive potential: pruning cycles restored, canopy opened, root systems given time to recover. Rejuvenation is not a shortcut. It is the work that makes everything that follows worth doing.

The first commercial harvest of Prima Raccolta will come when the grove is ready, not when the calendar says so.

At Oliveto Letizia, the harvest begins when the Minuta fruit is still transitioning — green to violet, not yet fully ripe. This is the moment of maximum phenolic concentration, when the oil is at its most vivid and nutritionally dense. The window is narrow, the fruit must be handled carefully, and the press cannot wait.

The grove is terraced into the mountainside — the only way to cultivate land at this gradient. Machines cannot work here. Every olive is picked by hand, which slows the harvest and limits the yield, but ensures the fruit arrives at the mill intact and undamaged. From grove to mill, the olives are cold-extracted — no heat, no chemicals, nothing that would compromise the integrity of what the tree spent a year producing.

The Prima Raccolta captures the very first pressing of the season: the highest expression of the harvest, bottled in a limited allocation of 500 numbered bottles.

The harvest changes year to year. Weather, timing, the particular character of the season — all of it finds its way into the bottle. That variation is not a flaw. It is the record of a place and a year, preserved in oil.

Provenance & Verification

Olive oil is one of the most adulterated foods in the world. Blended oils are sold as single-estate. Refined oils are labelled extra virgin. Country of origin is misrepresented. The problem is not new, and the industry’s self-regulation has not solved it.

LONGIORO approaches this differently.

Every bottle of Prima Raccolta carries an individual NFT on the XRP Ledger — a permanent, tamper-proof record linked to that specific bottle. Scan the QR code on the neck label and you will see the harvest record for your exact bottle: the estate, the cultivar, the harvest date, the bottle number. The record cannot be altered after it is written. It does not belong to us — it belongs to the ledger, and through it, to you.

This is not a marketing feature. It is a response to an industry where provenance claims are routinely unverifiable. We use the XRP Ledger because it is fast, low-cost, and built for exactly this kind of real-world asset verification.

You should know what you are buying. We have made it possible to check.

Prodotto di Sicilia · Oliveto Letizia, Nebrodi Mountains