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Vesuvius apricots (crisommole)

Slow Food Presidium · PAT · Fruit, vegetables and pulses · Campania

Apulica editorial team · Sources checked:

In brief

History and origin

Around Vesuvius apricots are called crisommole. According to the Campania Region the name would come from crisomele, the finest apricots described in 1583 by the Neapolitan scientist Giovan Battista Della Porta in his work on orchards, one of the first records of apricots in Campania.

In 1845 the Breve ragguaglio dell'Agricoltura e Pastorizia del Regno di Napoli named the apricot as the most common fruit tree around Naples after the fig, especially on the slopes of Vesuvius, where it grew particularly well and in many different varieties.

Those varieties are the result of centuries of selection. Farmers sowed apricot trees and watched them grow: if a plant showed interesting traits they propagated it, otherwise they removed it. The new variety, called pelese, razza verace or razza nativa, took the name of the farmer who had bred it, of the farm it came from or of a distinctive feature. Hence curious names such as boccuccia, pellecchiella, vitillo, cafona and vicienzo 'e maria. The Vesuvian apricot is now a traditional product of Campania and a Slow Food Presidium.

Sources: Regione Campania — Albicocca vesuviana (prodotto tradizionale) · Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Vecchie varietà di albicocche del Vesuvio · Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, XXVI revisione (2026)

Area and method of production

Of the roughly one hundred varieties recorded in the literature, about seventy have been found again, mostly kept in collection fields. The Presidium protects 23 traditional Vesuvian varieties, and some fifteen are still grown in the field, between 50 and 150 metres above sea level, on small farms.

The soils are volcanic and mostly sandy; the Region notes that they are very fertile and rich in minerals, especially potassium, which contributes to the fruit's flavour. Apricot trees grow alongside other fruit trees and vegetables, without chemical weedkillers and with organic fertiliser only.

Picking is done by hand from the first ten days of June to the end of July. The apricots go straight to market, to be eaten at the right ripeness, or are made into jams and pastries. Since the 1970s urban growth around Vesuvius has greatly reduced farming and squeezed apricot trees into tiny orchards, often hemmed in by buildings: the Presidium supports the small farms that keep the old trees and work to improve picking and selling.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Vecchie varietà di albicocche del Vesuvio · Regione Campania — Albicocca vesuviana (prodotto tradizionale)

How to recognise it

Crisommole are very sweet fruit, but delicate and perishable, and so ill-suited to large wholesale markets. Each variety has its own character. Boccuccia can be smooth or spiny depending on how rough the skin is and has a slightly sweet-sour taste; vitillo is large and round and prized for preserving in syrup; pellecchiella is considered among the best for its sweetness and intense aroma.

The Vesuvius National Park describes the Vesuvian apricot as a group of dozens of biotypes born in the same place, with yellowish, crisp, very juicy flesh, and stresses the marked flavour of Vesuvian produce, rich in minerals and sugars.

That high sugar content, the Region notes, makes these apricots well suited to juices and fruit in syrup.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Vecchie varietà di albicocche del Vesuvio · Regione Campania — Albicocca vesuviana (prodotto tradizionale) · Parco Nazionale del Vesuvio — Agricoltura e artigianato

In the kitchen

The best way to enjoy crisommole is fresh, just picked, at the right ripeness: that is why Presidium growers take them straight to market.

Vesuvian tradition also turns them into jams and pastries, and their sweetness suits juices and syrups; the vitillo variety, large and round, is especially prized for apricots in syrup.

Apricots belong to a Vesuvian table rich in fruit and vegetables, together with piennolo cherry tomatoes, cherries, citrus, walnuts and olives, and the wines made from the volcano's grapes.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Vecchie varietà di albicocche del Vesuvio · Regione Campania — Albicocca vesuviana (prodotto tradizionale) · Parco Nazionale del Vesuvio — Agricoltura e artigianato

Where to taste it

Crisommole grow on the slopes of Vesuvius, in small orchards between 50 and 150 metres up. The Vesuvius National Park notes that apricots are celebrated at summer festivals in Pollena Trocchia and Sant'Anastasia, two Vesuvian towns: the best occasions to taste the different varieties where they grow.

Vesuvius, the symbol of Naples and famous for the AD 79 eruption that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum, can be reached from Naples by car or public transport. The National Park offers eleven trails totalling 54 kilometres, with the main route following the western rim of the crater, and also includes Somma Vesuviana, Villa Regina at Boscoreale, the 18th-century villas of the Miglio d'Oro and the Vesuvian farmhouses.

The right time is early summer, in June and July, when the harvest is under way and fresh apricots reach the markets.

Sources: Parco Nazionale del Vesuvio — Agricoltura e artigianato · Italia.it (Ministero del Turismo) — Vesuvio · Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Vecchie varietà di albicocche del Vesuvio

Protection

When

Where

Campania