Torre Maizza, Puglia in your heart and taste

There is an Apulia that did not exist and today is an essential stop on the glamorous tourist trail in Italia. Savelletri di Fasano is sea-view countryside amidst the thousand-year-old olive groves of the Itria Valley, with the highest concentration of five-star masserias in the region. Its beauty could not be doubted, but who would have expected such success fifteen years ago? Luxury groups rushed to grab the best location, just as they once sought the one to spot Saracens and Ottomans coming in from the sea first. Rocco Forte opened in 2019 in the 16th-century Masseria Torre Maizza, after a huge renovation and transformation of the old farm estate into a contemporary resort.

It is the place to find, served on a silver platter, the perfect Apulian holiday. Starting with the palette: dazzling white of the walls, the blue sky and the phosphorescent green of the golf course, olive grove and vegetable gardens. The same that can be found in the rooms, especially the 12 new ones in the 'Borgo degli Ulivi', some with swimming pool, all with garden and rooftop. They look like the rooms at home, for the personality of the furnishings, fresh, light, elegant, never uniform and certainly not 'hotel-like'. A bit like a dream room, where you can retreat into silence, only to come out and find the slight worldliness that permeates the other spaces. The breakfast room with the light of the Mediterranean cutting the surfaces into perfect, iridescent geometries. The national and international newspapers, the buffet celebrating Puglia and the south with pasticciotto, almond cakes and fresh mozzarella.

One crosses a wisteria pergola and follows the signs to the swimming pool, as if in a hortus conclusus of citrus trees that in springtime dazzle with the intense perfume of orange blossoms that floods the gym almost invisibly among the foliage. This is the preamble before reaching the swimming pool, a cosy environment protected by ancient walls, and the restaurant where you can dine on salads and pizzas with almost zero-kilometre ingredients and lemon drinks as an instant refreshment.

The serious restaurant is the one in the evening. And even there you can relax and, reading the menu, say: 'You bring me everything'. A summa of understandable and healthy Mediterranean cuisine that we would all like to eat all the time. And Fulvio Pierangelini, creative director of all Rocco Forte's menus in Italia, knows this well. He has chosen traditional Italian cuisine always with superlative ingredients. So at dinner, the local version of vignarola is a nostalgia-inducing delight. And there is good drinking here, with a classic list and one with local spirits accompanied by tapas for an informal dinner while listening to live music (the artists gladly welcome anyone who wants to sing a tune), or on the terrace overlooking the plain down to the sea.

Torre Maizza you choose the pace of your stay, from lazing around supported with every comfort to golf lessons on the nine-hole course just a stone's throw from your suite, to tours to discover the area with tidbits and secrets that only an educated insider like Grazia Ciani, the hotel's pr, can reveal. Such as meditating early in the morning at the Castellana caves, before they open to the public, or going to the Le Costantine weaving workshop, a women's association that protects an ancient job and women's independence in the area with a line of very smart bags and in the past a super project for Dior. This stop is part of a project called Trame that aims to enhance the tradition of fashion and textiles in Apulia, with the taste that distinguishes the hotel (we recommend a look at the Torre Maizza boutique with a selection perfect for resort life). In the new era of high hospitality, there is no better ambassador of the territory than the hotels, which have accepted the sifda of becoming places and engines of culture as well. And the Rocco Forte Group is at the forefront of this highly responsible role. In Torre Maizza, until 8 September, it is hosting an exhibition by Marinella Senatore, with six installations including 'We Rise By Lifting Others', a large luminous merry-go-round that pays homage to Apulian folk festivals. Rocco Forte has put down strong roots in Apulia and in 2028 doubles with the nearby Masseria del Cardinale, 86 more rooms and the usual sensitivity of design director Olga Polizzi, here with Luigi Afragola for the interiors.