Maestri Norcini and Millers

In order to guarantee the highest quality, our flours are produced in an organic mill with four millstones dating back to 1721 which was recently renovated according to the original structural and mechanical features. The mill, as it mainly mills chestnuts, operates during the winter months with a full load productivity of about 3oo kg of flour per day.  One of the four millstones is used exclusively to mill organic chestnuts from the DOP area.  According to the regulations, in order to guarantee the quality of the supply chain to produce PDO farina di neccio (neccio flour), the chestnuts need to be cultivated without using chemical fertilisers, dried in the metati over a low heat produced by burning chestnut wood for at least 40 days and then, finally, milled in the local mills.  After producing the chestnut flour, the millstones (made with sandstone or pietra serena) are replaced with more resilient millstones made of granite or flint) in order to mill wheat or farro.  Being a miller was a common profession a long time ago.  Nowadays, the territory of Fabbriche di Vallico mainly consists of chestnut woods, whose cultivation was extremely intensive at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The people from these mountains still refer to the chestnut tree as “the tree of bread” as it has been an integral part of the diet for whole generations since 1400.