THE ORIGINS...

The family farm was born among the secular olive trees of the Alto Salento (Puglia region - Italy), a fascinating territory, a crossroads of cultures and a synthesis between East and West. Here, between the 8th and 9th centuries, the Basilian monks took refuge. Fleeing the iconoclastic persecutions perpetrated by the Byzantine Empire, they elected the karst caves that dot the territory as their home and place of worship. Thus the "Lavra" of Salento was born.  The monks animated that "narrow path", that natural ravine carved into the rock,  with their presence. It progressively transformed from a remote refuge to a cultural and economic drive, recovering the territory and promoting cultivation of the noble olive tree.In this scenario, the family olive groves develop where the centuries-old plants of Ogliarola and Cellina di Nardò grow next to the younger plants of Cellina and Frantoio.
Thus was born the idea of ​​"Lavra" oil, from the strong link with the history of a territory that looks to the East and whose red clay earth warms the heart and amazes.