Ostuni Culture

Ostuni's culture is agricultural at root, and its one great public occasion is built around a horse.

The Cavalcata

The feast of Sant'Oronzo in late August is marked by the Cavalcata, a procession in which riders escort the saint's statue through the town on horses caparisoned in red and gold, the cloths embroidered and passed down in families. It is unlike anything else in Puglia and it is unmistakably for the town rather than for visitors.

Oil

Ostuni lives on olive oil and has done for two thousand years. The plain below produces some of the most valued oil in Italy, and the old presses — frantoi ipogei, cut down into the rock so that the temperature stayed constant through the pressing season — survive under the town and the countryside. Several can be visited.

Keeping it white

The limewash is maintained, not preserved. Householders repaint, the municipality regulates the colour, and the whiteness is therefore a continuous collective effort rather than a heritage designation. Lime also breathes, which suits the soft local stone in a way modern paint does not.

The masserie

The plain is organised around masserie — fortified farm estates, walled and towered against raiding from the sea, each with its own press, cisterns, chapel and quarters for the families who worked it. They are the basic unit of agricultural life here and there are hundreds of them. Many now operate as hotels and restaurants, which is what has funded the restoration of buildings that were otherwise falling down, and is also the clearest illustration of how the local economy has shifted.

The table

Orecchiette and cavatelli, lamb and kid, wild greens, ricotta forte, sea urchins on the coast in season, and the local Ostuni wines, white from Impigno and Francavidda grapes.