Cantine Olivella

The history of Cantine Olivella

The Cantine Olivella winery was founded in Sant’Anastasia, meaning “at the foot of the mountain,” in the heart of the Vesuvius National Park—a protected area that offers the ideal habitat for vine cultivation. This ancient tradition has been revived and enhanced by the winery, with the aim of preserving the uniqueness and history of a truly distinctive grape.

In fact, at the foot of Mount Somma, near the spring known as “Olivella”—from which the winery takes its name—a fragment of a wine jar was discovered in 1974. This finding is evidence of the richness of an area that, since ancient times, produced some of the finest wines of ancient Rome, traded with Pompeii.

At the opening, the jar bears the abbreviated inscription of “Sextus Catius Festus,” alongside a stamp depicting a stylized leaf resembling a small heart. This seal has significantly become the very logo of “Cantine Olivella,” transformed into a wine glass.

Cantine Olivella – Sextus Catius Festus

The winery

Cantine Olivella’s production is limited but of high quality. The most delicate phases of cultivation, including the harvest, are carried out exclusively by hand. Vinification, bottling, and packaging take place within the winery and are performed with great care, ensuring a carefully controlled product of the highest value.

The winery offers optimal climatic and humidity conditions; it is equipped with the most advanced and modern winemaking technologies, and every stage of production is carefully overseen by highly qualified staff. In this way, an exclusive selection of wines is created, where quality and tradition merge masterfully.

Our vineyards

We cultivate 12 hectares of vineyards scattered like a patchwork across three different municipalities at the foot of Mount Somma, in the areas of Pollena Trocchia, Sant’Anastasia, and Somma Vesuviana, in the province of Naples.

All our vineyards are trained with the espalier system and pruned using the Guyot method. The north-western exposure ensures a strong temperature range between day and night, while the winds caress our vines, which grow in balance between leaves and fruit, in full respect of nature’s rhythms and timing.

Philosophy

The project aims to raise quality, contextualize it, and connect it to the promotion and enhancement of the area and its numerous archaeological finds: from the remains of Roman villas to millstones and presses, from tools to amphorae and jars.

For us at Cantine Olivella, cultivating means enhancing a territory, bringing out its energy through sustainable farming practices and concrete actions aimed at protecting such a precious environment as a common good.

Increasing biodiversity through the natural enrichment of flora and soil microorganisms – green manuring – for better subsoil management, using exclusively organic fertilization and thus reducing soil erosion and compaction.

  • Ungrafted vines;
  • Tying the vines with willow shoots, an agricultural technique on the verge of extinction;
  • Defoliation and canopy management for proper grape ripening;
  • Self-production of scions for new vineyard plantings.

In the vineyards, gaps are filled using the ancient layering method, burying a shoot to create a new vine.