| The underground olive press known as the “Mulino a vento” (the windmill) is to the south east of the town Uggiano La Chiesa, on the old road which used to link Cerfignano to Otranto. It was built in 1688, as the date engraved on the entrance bears witness.
Access is via a stone stairway surmounted by a barrel vault ceiling. The first room, used for milling the olives, still has the basin or tub and the millstone for processing the olives. Around this you can still see the furrow left by the animals who pulled the mill.
A series of small chambers in the walls of the room were used for storing olives in before they were crushed. In the same room some limestone blocks show where the wooden presses were lodged, used for pressing the olive paste, once it had been collected after the first milling.
Going through this, the first room, you come to another larger room used as a stable and as a resting room for the “millers and pressers”.
The Olive Press now has audio-visual technology to aid our understanding of the work and the life that went on inside these structures.
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