Melissa Natura, Italian Calabrian farm

La storia di Melissa Natura

It's been almost a century since the Lonetti Family was dedicated to cultivate grapevines and olive trees, from the grandfather Antonino to the daddy Giuseppe. But it's just in 2002, when Gaetano Lonetti took over the family farm, that Melissa Natura was founded.

The purpose of our farm is to give right distinction to the products of our land, a land kissed by the sun because of its location to the East, where the sweet colors of the mountain is exalted by the fragrance of the sea (not far away), in a combination that makes these lands "Giachetta", the ideal place to enjoy nature and the products of his land.

The farm is located on the top of an hill in front of Melissa village, with the ruins of its castle belonged to Count Francis Campitelli in the seventeenth century and the beauty of its historical center, where the air you breathe is that of a typical feudal village.

Melissa! From the greek Melissa "Bee" which derives from meli "honey". The meaning is "industrious as a bee". In the Greek mythology Melissa was a nymph who did fall in love with the God Apollo, distracting him from his work to bring the chariot of the sun (from the sunrise to the sunset was his race). He was punished for that and turned into a bee. Melissa means "one who gives honey" or easier: "bee".

But for our history Melissa also represents the site of the battles for the conquest of the lands which gave birth the process of allocating lands so the famous land reform that from 1949 began to give dignity to the farmers not only from Melissa but also from the all Calabria.

In this beautiful environment, an area of five hectares, Gaetano Lonetti, after careful studies on the diversity of the land has begun the diversification of the farm production. Among the projects are worth highlighting the fig-field, and an experimental field of white-flowered oregano, typical of our wilderness lands but with a deep perfume and medicinal properties.

The fig-field covers an area of one hectare with a planting of five for six and about 250 plants, all belonging to the specie "dottato bianco" (white figs).

Our farm has also initiated the restructuring of the vineyards by grubbing and replanting them. We succeded to keep the same varieties of grapes replanting the same rootstocks: the "17/37" since ever the only rootstock suited to this kind of lands, drought-resistant and obtained from Millardet e De Grosset.

This kind of rootstocks maintain a good drought and chlorosis resistance and also a good reaction to the compactness of the ground, with an excellent achievement of the sugar level of the plant.

In the vineyards you can observe the Gaglioppo, the Greco Nero and the Greco Bianco a part from little quantities of Zibibbo and Malvasia grapes.

The intention of the farm is the production of a good Melissa DOC red wine and also a passito wine created to match the taste of oven-dried figs.

Another important action was taken to restructure the olive tree grove through the grafting of plants where there weren't. It's an olive grove located on an area of about an acre and a half with the olive tree centuries-old roots that survived a strong fire that burned almost the entire olive grove in the sixties.

In the olive tree grove you can meet many varieties of olives: San Benedetto olives, Strongolese round olives, Napoletana olives and Carolea olives. But it is the soil and the sun that make the fruit of these plants, a wonderful olive oil.

Finally the farm is crossed by a small-scale stream of water bordered by woods of oak, pine, strawberry trees, holm oaks, elms and white elders.