THE ORIGINS

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The family remembers him: great-grandfather Orazio Antonio had an entrepreneurial spirit. It was the 1940s, there were more fields than roads, more trees than houses, but we were looking to the future. What to grow? Peaches? Grape? Artichokes? No, olives. The most precious fruit from a land that has been home to the longest-lived tree of all for centuries: the olive tree. Horace Anthony and the son Domenico thus gave life to Mill Labianca.

OLD AND NEW FACES

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Year after year, new machinery has replaced the older ones, electrical systems have replaced mules and horses. With the succession of generations, the protagonists of the story have also changed. Domenico left the oil mill in the hands of his son Davide which soon he allowed himself to be supported by his enthusiastic son Domenico, which today is the brains and arms of the entire activity.

``In 1999 the oil mill officially became mine, but my father Davide collaborated and helped until illness prevented him. This was his whole life." (Domenico Labianca)

What does it mean to find yourself managing a business like this? It's not the same as receiving an old family heirloom or a beach house, it is more similar to inheriting the profile, the color of the eyes, the sound of laughter from one's ancestors.
It is a heritage that is precious not for how much it yields but for how ancient and deep-rooted it is, as it no longer only has to do with the land, the fruits and the oil itself, but has become a family affair. And family affairs are always (or almost always) affairs of Heart, Of ties and blood.
Now history repeats itself. Next to Domenico is his daughter Lorella and in the eyes of both of them there are big plans and a thirst for the future.

LABIANCA DOMENICO OIL MILL

A FAMILY BUSINESS

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``Not only the wine sings, the oil sings too, it lives in us with its mature light and among the goods of the earth I select, oil, your inexhaustible peace, your green essence, your full treasure that descends from sources of the olive tree.``

Pablo Neruda

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