I have many interesting things to share from my recent wine trip to Italy.  Among them is visiting Alberobello, in southern Italy’s Puglia region, which is well known for its unique limestone, cone-shaped structures called “trulli”.  The trulli zone has more than 1500 of these unique architectural structures and has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Archeological studies confirm tribes from the Middle East settled here in prehistoric times.  These tribes used to erect tombs to bury their dead by using the sun-bleached flat limestone sheets of stone in a tower-like mound using no mortar.  These simple primitive white-washed structures also provided a place to live.  They had only one small door, very few had windows and some painted their roofs with religious symbols, some of pagan origin.

When you see a whole village of trulli you expect to see “gnomes” or fairies from the Brothers Grimm stories emerge! 

Many trulli are still lived in but some have been converted to restaurants, shops and hotels or holiday houses. 

This “trulli” is a “must” see when you visit southern Italy.

Marie, West Coast, North West Florida Wine Supervisor