The Story of the Last Spiritaro

At the southernmost tip of Italy, in Reggio Calabria, where the air is scented with citrus and sea salt, a nearly vanished tradition still survives, guarded by a single man: Vincenzo Amodeo, the last master of hand-sponged bergamot oil.

But if you ask him, don’t call him a craftsman. He is, and wishes to be called, a Spiritaro.

It is from the wisdom of his hands that comes the bergamot we use in Bergamoud.

Speaking with Vincenzo feels like leafing through the yellowed pages of a forgotten book—one that holds family memories, oral traditions, and vanished trades. His voice recalls the days when Reggio Calabria, between the 1940s and the 1970s, was filled with dozens of spiritari: men who, with patience and precision, extracted bergamot essence using nothing but their hands and natural sea sponges.

“It was hard, repetitive work,” Vincenzo recounts, “but with good company, the hours went by lightly.”

The days began early, with the harvest of the bergamots. The fruits were cut in half, emptied by hand, and soaked in water and lime before being laid out to dry in the gentle Calabrian breeze.

But the true extraction began only at nightfall: rows of spiritari would gather in large farmhouses and, straddling their wooden stools, they pressed the fruit peels against sea sponges carefully placed over a concolina, the traditional vessel for collecting the essence.

The right angle, the perfect pressure on the sponge, the sharp eye to catch imperfections in the peel—every gesture demanded extraordinary precision.

To avoid waste, the spiritari would squeeze a peel near a flame—if it ignited, it meant there was still oil, and the work went on.

The result of this meticulous process is the true essence of bergamot: luminous, delicate, and pure.

A method as slow as it is precious, now almost completely replaced by industrial processes.

And yet, in a corner of Reggio, between the shimmer of the Strait and the shadow of the Aspromonte, the spirit of the spiritari has not entirely vanished. It lives on in the hands and stories of Vincenzo, last guardian of an invisible art, fragrant with history and passion.

“The sponging of bergamot is like haute couture, each fruit has its own measure"

Vincenzo Amodeo