AN ANCIENT OIL MILL. A FAMILY STORY. A CONTEMPORARY OLIVE OIL.
Tenuta D’Alba was born in the heart of Salento, where our family preserves a 16th-century underground oil mill carved into the rock, a witness to a long olive oil tradition. Our story began long before us, but it took shape through the work of our grandfather Filadelfio, known as “Effo”, who dedicated his life to the land, to animals, to vegetables, and to olive trees. From him we learned that agriculture is not just production, but care, attention, and continuity.
From this heritage comes an extra virgin olive oil that combines respect for the past with a contemporary vision.
Selected cultivars chosen to express identity, balance, and character, for an authentic taste experience.
Today, our company is the way we carry this approach forward: cultivating with care, selecting with attention, and telling the story of our land without forcing it. Our olive oil is born from careful selection and a supply chain followed step by step.
To cultivate means to care.
Our estate was first and foremost created as a place of cultivation. Here, the land is not an abstract concept, but a daily presence: it is observed, worked and respected. We grow a seasonal vegetable garden that changes throughout the year. Tomatoes, summer crops and winter vegetables: each harvest follows its natural timing, without forcing. The garden is the most vibrant heart of our farm, reminding us every day that agriculture is made of waiting, mistakes and continuous adjustments. Next to the garden grows a fig orchard of around 140 trees, a small heritage we care for with attention. Figs are a simple fruit, yet they require observation, careful pruning and delicate harvesting. For us, they represent a perfect balance between rural tradition and biodiversity. Olive trees are also part of our everyday landscape. We do not pursue large volumes, but constant care, soil attention and respect for natural cycles.
OUR OLIVE OIL
In our work, we tend to focus on varieties that have a long and deeply rooted history in Puglia and Southern Italy. These are varieties that have adapted over time to calcareous soils, to the wind, to intense light, and to the irregular seasons of the Mediterranean. Each harvest brings subtle variations, which we see as a richness rather than a limitation.
THE 16TH-CENTURY UNDERGROUND OIL MILL
A place that preserves memory.
Within our property lies a 16th-century underground oil mill, carved into the rock. For a long time, it remained hidden and unused, until our family decided to restore it, respecting its original structure. Entering the oil mill means descending below ground level and encountering a quiet, cool space, shaped by the work of generations. The millstones, the vats, and the underground passages tell the story of a completely different way of producing olive oil, yet one that remains deeply fascinating.
We have not turned it into an artificial museum. Instead, we chose to preserve its soul, allowing the place to speak through its materials, its humidity, and its scents.
For us, the oil mill is a living testimony of what agricultural work in Salento once was.
EXPERIENCES AND GUIDED TOURS
Visits to the estate were born from the desire to share what we do, without creating staged experiences or artificial routes. Those who come to us step into a real working farm, with its rhythms, its silences, and its everyday work.