In Cisternino in the heart of the Itria Valley, among the trulli, on a hill about 397 metres above sea level is the organic farm "Il Frantolio D'Amico Peter", an ancient family farm operating in the olive oil sector since 1917.

At Il Frantolio, twenty-five varieties of olives are cultivated, including the most commonly used in Puglia, the largest producer of olive oil in Italy; Ogliarola, Nardo, Cerasola, Fasola and Leucocarpa, there are also two varieties of wild olive trees  on the estate – harvested to use in special blends of oil. All of the olives are picked by hand, from October to December to ensure the finest quality. Then, once picked, all processing happens within twelve hours – any delay can result in bitterness or moulds on the olives which will spoil the olive oil. Unlike many olive oil producers, here only olives grown on the estate are processed to ensure that tree to press time is always minimal and quality always unquestionable. Although Il Frantolio as it now exists is well established (the family started producing oil in 1917) the majority of the trees pre-date the oil business and are between 100 and 200 years old, though there’s one ancient tree that has been around for over 1,100 years. This is the land of Olives.  The estate is in part organic and is gradually moving to an entirely organic system of cultivation. The Masseria has two methods of producing cold press olive oil, the first using a traditional press, the second using a double centrifuge.

The production methods vary still more; Il Frantolio has a few special techniques to create a range of distinctive premium extra virgin olive oil.   ‘Lacrima’  for example, uses seven different types of olives – including a white olive originally from Israel and a local wild olive.  Once the olives are crushed, oil is produced by making small holes in the paste which are allowed to collect oil for just 30 minutes.  Normally 100kg of olives will produce between 12 and 16 litres of olive oil, but using this technique the yield from 100kg is just 1 litre of olive oil.

Necttare, another premium product is produced from olives picked just from the top of the tree, so more exposed to the sun and wind.  Again it is produced using the traditional press.

The centrifugal method is used to process around 70% of the olives, although the machinery is still capable of producing a variety of olive oil depending on whether the olives are de-stoned or not and by flavouring the oils, adding fresh orange, lemon or herbs during the processing. Once extracted, the oils are stored in a constant temperature (between 14 and 16C) below ground level.  They are kept sealed and in the dark until they are ready to be bottled and sold.