Montekore

Montekore was born in 2016 when three Tuscan sisters — Olivia, Carlotta, and Bettina — fell in love during a journey with an arid, abandoned plot of land near Cannole, a few kilometres from Otranto. Together with Francesco, over seven years of work, they transformed the foundations of a derelict farmhouse into a certified organic farm with over a hundred cultivated species and two hundred varieties of native Mediterranean flora under active protection. The name carries Kore within it — the archetypal maiden, an epithet of Persephone, goddess of the seasonal cycle — as an invocation of an almost sacred relationship with the soil.

Production covers seasonal vegetables, aromatic herbs, and medicinal plants, processed in an on-site laboratory where infusions, herbal teas, dried spices, and plant extracts take shape. The approach belongs to people who did not stop at growing: Carlotta Bitossi and her partners chose to become custodians of a place, restoring biological life to a corner of eastern Salento that was slowly returning to scrubland.