Leonforte Peach PGI
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"Leonforte Peach PGI", also called "Settembrina", is cultivated, with a centuries-old tradition made of natural breeding between late varieties specific locality of our territory. Cultivars that are most used are yellow flesh, but there are also white paste.
Peaches are backward because ripen in September and October, that is when the other domestic varieties have long since ended their production.
The distinguishing feature of the cultivation of Leonforte's peaches is the practice of putting in an individual bag all the fruits, still on the tree, in the second half of June.
This is to protect the fruits, unripe, from all external factors, whether they are weatherproof weather that the attack of insects and parasites (in particular from the deposition of eggs by the fruit fly); bag preserve the peach until fully ripe. In this way it is totally excluded the use of any chemical product.
The fruit is then naturally protected inside his bag of parchment paper that will accompany the peaches until harvest, while offering a product without defects or imperfections exterior that will mature better and keep within the "coppo (little bag)" their incomparable flavor and aroma.
Around the month of March, during the vegetative growth of the plants are subjected to pruning. Immediately after will be an extraordinary blossoming of pink flowers.
In the following June that it has one of the most important moments of cultivation, that is, when each individual, small peach is "ncuppata", or bagged.
This, of course, is done manually by skilled local craftsmen specialized.
Each fruit is then wrapped in a paper bag translucent parchment that will pass the light, but at the same time will protect it from any possible external aggression, then applying a wire (to secure the bag itself) with extreme caution and skill to not damage the fruit.
The peach "of Leonforte" when it is ripe, it shows greenish yellow skin, red streaks more or less noticeable, yellow pulp, soda, aromatic and adhering to the core. It has organoleptic characteristics and unique: the smell, the taste, the sweetness, color and texture.
All this, combined with the patience, experience, professionalism, care, love for beautiful and healthy of the Leonforte's growers, is the September Peach of "Leonforte" niche product, jewel of sicilian agriculture that had finally recognized in 2010 by the European Union the PGI (Protected Geographical Indication).
Every year on the first Saturday and the first Sunday of October in Leonforte there are the traditional "Festival of Peaches and typical products".
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