Marche Breaks

There are many different qualities of olive cultivated in this region, and their fruits are used both as a food in itself and for oil production.

The cultivation of the olive tree has ancient origins. Evidence of the quality of the olive oil from the Marches can be found back in Medieval times when the ships, (coming from the Marches region) in order to be able to berth on the shores of Ferrara, were charged a toll, the ‘ripatico’, which took the form of twenty five pounds of oil. This is the historical proof that the oil from the Marches was considered to be superior to that from other areas. In the thirteen hundreds, oil from the Marches was sold to the Serenissima Republic and to Florence to the tune of over two thousand five hundred oil jars per year.

Still today, over seven thousand hectares (seventeen thousand five hundred acres) of specialised olive groves with a production of forty five quintals per year produce an extra-virgin olive oil with good organoleptic qualities and low acidity. The typical varieties are "leccino" and "frantoio", as well as the old, autochthonous species: "mignola", "sergano", "carboncella", "raggiola", "rosciola", "piantone di Falerone", "piantone di Mogliano",  "lea" and "nebba", which donate particular fragrances.

Producers (click on the link to open the internet site)