Cilento Verde
Capaccio Paestum · Founded 1968
For more than half a century, the Russo family has tended eighty-seven hectares of olive groves, herb gardens, and protected woodland in the green heart of southern Italy — pressing, curing, and packing every jar and bottle on the farm itself.
A Letter From the Land
A continuous lineage — not a marketing origin tale. Four generations, eighty-seven hectares, one DOP-protected estate inside the Cilento, Vallo di Diano e Alburni National Park.
Nonno Salvatore and Nonna Rosa planted the first Pisciottana trees on the slope above Contrada Santa Venere in the spring of 1968, on land that had been in the family since the turn of the century. The first pressing filled forty-eight stone jars. They were sold to neighbors, by name.
Two thousand four hundred Pisciottana olive trees — some of them over six centuries old — anchor the estate today. Hand-nets, not shakers. Cold-press within six hours of harvest. The grove is the same grove, only larger, only older.
Eleven product lines now carry the Cilento DOP mark — extra virgin olive oil, Alici di Menaica, Maracuollo artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, and seven more. Marco and Giulia Russo, the third generation, joined Slow Food Presidia the same year and earned Carbon Trust Neutral Certified status in 2022, the first DOP producer in the region to do so.
The Grove, in Artifacts
The provenance we describe on paper is provenance you can hold in your hand. Four frames from a single working week on the estate.
A Custodianship, Not a Tenancy
The oregano, thyme, fennel, and myrtle that season our preserved vegetables and finishing salts are not cultivated. They are hand-picked, in season, from the slopes of Monte Bulgheria under a cooperative agreement with the Cilento National Park authority — a quiet arrangement that limits daily yield and protects the wild populations.
The same agreement covers the cuttings from our own older groves, which the park's botanists monitor every spring. In 2017, we joined Slow Food Presidia for the heirloom Cilento tomato varieties that the Russo family has saved seed from for three generations — a small but binding commitment to keep those lines in the ground, and on the table, for the next.
— Marco & Giulia Russo, third generation
By the Numbers
The Russo family, Contrada Santa Venere, Capaccio Paestum.
Groves, gardens, and protected woodland inside the National Park.
Trees, some over six centuries old, hand-harvested each October.
Including Cilento Olive Oil, Alici di Menaica, and Maracuollo.
Same-week fulfillment from the Naples warehouse, cold-chain.
Michelin-starred and Bib Gourmand restaurants across three continents.
Cold-pressed on the estate, never blended, never sourced.
Full-time family staff, plus eighteen seasonal harvesters.
Marks of Stewardship
2022
The first DOP Cilento producer to reach carbon-neutral status — Italy's smallest certified estate to do so at the time of award. Measured across grove operations, milling, cure rooms, and outbound cold-chain to the Naples warehouse.
Since 2017
Active member of the Slow Food Presidia for heirloom Cilento tomato varieties, with a binding seed-saving commitment carried forward by the third generation of the Russo family.
1968 →
Founded by Salvatore and Rosa Russo; stewarded today by siblings Marco and Giulia. Forty-two full-time staff, eighteen seasonal harvesters, one farm, one valley, one unbroken line.