The area: 150 km of land, unique in the world

The area devoted to cultivation of the Bergamot of Reggio Calabria P. D.O. is extremely restricted: stretching for just 100 kilometres along the Ionian coast around Reggio, on the southernmost point of the boot of Italy, overlooking the Straits of Messina. The zone is characterised by a microclimate which climatic charts describe as “tropical moist temperate”: the result of a truly unique combination of circumstances. These include the very slight difference between daytime and night-time temperatures over the course of the year; the particular formation of the landscape, with wide valleys sliced through by “fiumare”, the typical water-courses of this area; and the sirocco winds which blow across the coast from time to time, bringing abundant rainfall in winter and damp heat in summer. There is also the quality of the soil, which is very rich in minerals; the presence of abundant water for irrigation in summer (amounting to about 800/1000 litres per adult tree every 2 weeks), and the fact that the entire area is south-facing. In no other part of the world can one find a combination of factors so well-adapted to cultivation
of the Bergamot. And so it is no accident that the only place the trees fruit so successfully is in the province of Reggio Calabria, ensuring an essence of the very highest quality. The figures speak for themselves: about 95% of the world production of Bergamot comes from the Reggio area. Despite the many trials carried out in other European countries and in every continent, the Bergamot has only been successfully established in an area of the Ivory Coast, but the results in terms of the quality of the fruit, and especially of the essence, have proved distinctly inferior to those achieved in its homeland of Reggio Calabria.