he Romans named the area known today as Valdemone, the "Vallis Nemorum" because of the region’s wealth of forests. From the Middle Ages to 1812, Valdemone was an important administrative and financial district in northeastern Sicily.
According to a 16th Century survey, Valdemone covered an area of 6,500 square kilometers and had a population of 250,000, extending north from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the River Grande, and from the Ionian Sea all the way to Taormina.
The olive, as well as almond and carob trees, were brought to the island of Sicily by the Phoenicians, and the olive in particular spread under Greek rule in 500 BC, to areas of the island where it was difficult to grow anything else.
Both Phoenicians and Greeks traded Sicilian olive oil all over the Mediterranean, using specially built ships to carry the large terracotta amphorae containing this precious substaqnce. Later, the Romans also raised the production and trade of olive oil from Sicily.
That olive production was well developed in Valdemone can be seen from the presence in 1507, of as many as eight presses in the feudal commune of Samperi alone. At the time, feudal lords who had a primary interest in the production of olive oil, allowed their subjects to take only a very small part of their production for their own use, and then only the oil obtained from the second pressing.
Archives in the local Chamber of Commerce contain documents with production data dating back to AD 853 showing that since then the production of olive oil has increased constantly, as has export to international markets, particularly the United States, Great Britain, Russia and Holland.
