(English) A tour of the San Lorenzo Estate

 

 The San Lorenzo estate has been an active farm since the 10th century and encompasses all of the characteristics of Umbria’s nature: 400 hectares of land located on a hill between Foligno and Spello nestled on the slopes of Mount Subasio at 400 to 600m above sea level.
The centre of the estate, at the hill’s summit, is a tiny hamlet built around a convent founded in 1300 by Claren monk.  The complex includes a small and still consecrated church and an ancient cloister.
Today’s cultivation includes 40 hectares of olive groves and 40 of vineyard, which thrive in particularly favourable conditions: its perfect exposure to the mid-day sun, excellent drainage and fine soft winds guarantee the extraordinary quality of the harvest.  
The estate also has 300 hectares of woodland, fields and pastureland, part of it fenced off to create a reserve where the wild deer and hare roam freely. Another part of the land is reserved for training hunting dogs and seasonal hunting.
The estate is always open and visitors are welcome to sample (and purchase) wine and extra-virgin olive oil. Guided tours are conducted, but a reservation is needed.  

The guided tour is organised according to the visitors’ requests.  It can include a visit to the oil presses, the mill, the winery and the Monastery of San Lorenzo, with its tiny Church.  It is open to the general public on August 10 for the San Lorenzo festivities.

The tour to the winery, where the wine is made and preserved until it is ready to be drunk, is very interesting.  Visitors are also taken to the cellar where the wine ages in barriques before being bottled and sold.

The nearby oil presses are also interesting, in part because the ages-old Sinolea-Rapanelli method is still used. This method is unique in that it manages to respect the oil’s natural organoleptic qualities by cold-pressing the olives in various phases.

Visitors touring the estate during the olive harvest can see the presses in action and watch the fruit being transformed into the precious extra-virgin olive oil that results. They can also participate, something which more and more visitors each year do, in the harvest itself! Armed with baskets they can pick olives and then see the fruit of their labours when they are pressed.   

These tours must be booked in advance.  Our manager, Caterina, and our head winemaker, Simone, will be delighted to welcome you and guide you in your discovery of our ancient secrets!

And every visit ends with a raising of glasses!!!!