Consorzio La Bella della Daunia D.O.P.

OUR HISTORY

 

The cultivation of the “Bella di Cerignola” olive dates back to time immemorial.

Surely at the beginning it was transformed more to meet the needs of the family than for commercial purposes. Its diffusion has been gradually expanding in the world, and in particular in the United States of America, to make this olive one of the most valuable table cultivars.

Some authors believe that this cultivar derives from the “Orchites” olives of the Romans, others that it was introduced from Spain before 1400, in the Aragonese period. However, having never been present among the indigenous cultivars of the Iberian peninsula, it can be considered a native variety of the Cerignola countryside in ancient Daunia today known as Tavoliere delle Puglie.

 

The production and trade of this table olive have always represented an activity of great importance for Cerignola and operators of all times must acknowledge the will and diligence required for a growing affirmation on the national and foreign consumer markets.

Already at the end of the nineteenth century there are reports of olives, tanned in the Cerignola area, sent to the eastern part of the United States of America. These olives were shipped in the characteristic "Vascidd" wooden barrels, with a capacity ranging from 50 to 100 kg, and even more in the so-called "Cugnett", typical truncated cone-shaped wooden containers of 5-10 kg. the small supply of an almost homemade and familiar character, which would later have the value of an intense and convincing commercial diffusion of the olive in faraway America.

Subsequently, the Cerignola olives, around 1920, were also introduced in California thanks to the migratory phenomenon that came to affect the western part of the United States of America.

In 1930 the Cerignola olive was considered by a technical commission responsible for identifying the best Italian table cultivars among the most valuable and suitable for the production of green olives.

 

In 1969, at the "Giuseppe Pavoncelli" Agricultural Technical Institute in Cerignola, a specific seminar was held on the "Bella di Cerignola" table olive, in which numerous exponents of the agricultural, industrial and industrial worlds took part. academic. In 1976 a work was published carried out in the years 74 and 75 by the Institute of Agricultural Industries of the University of Bari on the transformation with the Californian method of the Bella di Cerignola black olive, with which this type of transformation of the precious olive is formally started. cultivar. In 1980 a work was published by the Experimental Station for the Food Preserves Industry of Parma on the conservation of Bella di Cerignola green and black olives. In 1984 a work carried out by the University of Bari was published in which it was pointed out that the Bella di Cerignola olive, widespread for centuries in some territories of the Province of Foggia to the point of being considered a native variety, represents one of the best varieties for the production of table olives thanks to the constant high size of the drupes and their good qualitative characteristics.

 

In 2000 the variety of table olive “Bella di Cerignola” obtained the European registration as Protected Designation of Origin “La Bella della Daunia”.

Today, therefore, the most beautiful olives, the largest, those with requirements that meet the requirements of the Production Regulations of the PDO La Bella della Daunia Bella di Cerignola variety, are processed and marketed, both as green and black olives, with this prestigious European recognition of Protected Designation of Origin.