Seggiano Foods: A Chance Meeting that Brought Italy to the World
Tuscany is one of those places that, even if you’ve never been there—even, in fact, if you’ve never seen a picture of it—you can imagine perfectly. You know what it looks like, exactly the temperature, the breeze, the sunset, the architecture. You know what it is like to have a big group dinner with friends there, seated outdoors with string lights above, the table festooned with wine glasses, bread and olive oil.
In the southern part of the region is an old volcano called Monte Amiata. Viewed from the ski resorts on its many peaks, the volcano is painted with verdant fields and darker dots of beech, fir, chestnut and olive trees. Like every other mile of Italy, it is an agricultural endowment. And if you’re worried about the volcano blowing up ski lodges, don’t; it hasn’t erupted in 300 millennia.
On the foothills of Monte Amiata is a medieval village called Seggiano, founded in the 10th century and still populated today by a thousand Tuscans. Since the late 1980s, Peri Eagleton and David Harrison have grown organic olives there. (They are not the only olive growers in the area; the groves blanketing the area are 800 years old.) Peri and David first met at an airport in Rome. Each was traveling to the United Kingdom, and over conversation realized a mutual love of sustainability, food and wellness. The company Seggiano was born.
