OUR HOME - FRANTOIO DEL POGGIOLO

Behind Monini is a community who is focused, resilient, hardworking, and passionate about what we do.

Frantoio del Poggiolo is a restored farmhouse, and the headquarters of Monini oil. It’s here where a lot of the important work takes place, where we combine our rigorous work practices in achieving superior quality oil along with sharing our knowledge on extra virgin olive oil.

Creating the best extra virgin olive oil is what we are passionate about, and so is sharing in the special culture that surrounds us. At Frantoio del Poggiolo our doors are always open to those olive oil lovers and foodies wanting to discover more about our secrets of olive oil and cultivation techniques. Meetings, conferences, workshops and cooking courses create opportunities to share knowledge with famous chefs from around the world.

THE HOME

Half way up a hill in the midst of olive groves, it is a place in which modern agricultural machinery meets elegant residential spaces which welcome seminar and conference participants.

DESIGN

It is the harmony with which the various elements and building materials have been combined which generates the building’s cozy, sophisticated and natural atmosphere. On the ground floor is the olive press for milling, the portico for olive unloading and other agricultural spaces. The first floor is the residential area with ceiling trusses, wooden beams, terracotta floors, lime-washed plastered walls, art nouveau balustrades and glass lampshades.

THE ROOMS

The welcoming entrance hall leads through to a small wooden library packed with books on olive growing and production techniques. Continuing along the corridor leads to a large modern kitchen which opens up into a living room like a great stage, the source of inspiration for the culinary creations which our chef makes with the products of the olive press. Guests stay in the guest house’s seven rooms with private bath furnished to match the elegance of its other rooms.

THE OLIVE GROVE

THE OLIVE GROVE HILLS

Frantoio del Poggiolo is set on three hills dominating the Spoleto valley in forty hectares of agricultural land planted with olive groves.

This is the site of our olive grove with its 5,500 historic olive trees and a further 1500 new trees distributed across around twenty-five hectares.

OLIVE CULTIVARS

The varieties we have chosen – some native, some imported – enable us to study every growing, harvest and working variable and phase.

Approximately 80% of our olives are Moraiolo, an almost exclusively Umbrian variety which is a distinguishing characteristic of the Assisi-Spoleto oil blends. A further 12% is Frantoio, and 4.5% Leccino, two noble cultivars characteristic of central Italy with 3.5% being made up of other varieties.

THE LABORATORY

Of equal importance to our work is the avant-garde machinery we need for the next stages of olive growing. Frantoio del Poggio is an absolutely top quality center with technologies guaranteeing high performance also for the working of our niche products including Novello, an unfiltered extra-virgin olive oil produced every year in tiny quantities.

FARMING

Balancing extra virgin aromas and giving it a noble flavour means choosing the right cultivars.

Each cultivar has its own characteristics and every year the climate, soil and season influences the different yields and quality that produces either a more pungent or intense flavour.

The ideal blend is a matter of recipes combining the best oils in a given vintage.

WORKING

Quality is not simply a matter of good raw materials, but also implementing correct procedures without neglecting elements such as harvest period, methods and storage which can impact the taste of the final product.

Irrigation and different working time frames are decided on the basis of olive type, cultivar and weather conditions.