Agricoltura e Paesaggio rurale

The 530 farms, many of which specialize in the cultivation of vines and olive trees, are responsible for the protection of our fragile territory. Thanks to their direct presence, heroically cultivating the various intermixed crops as a mosaic of small plots, often with high slopes, right up to the edges of the gullies, following the rittochino arrangement, with established quality productions, it results in the 2011 agricultural census data, the first municipality in the region in vineyard area. The following are cultivated: local grape varieties including Montepulciano, Passerina or Pagadebito and Pecorino, olive trees, grain cereals, rotated forage crops, sunflowers, fruit trees, vegetables and nurseries. The scattered or in rows of olive trees, consociated with herbaceous crops, remnants of ancient forms of wedded vine cultivation, determine the integrity of our historic landscape. The scattered old-growth specimens, in addition to production, perform, maintenance of the escarpments in the strips between the various plots and the determination of the boundary between the various properties, in a complete, evolved landscape that is maintained historically, with native varieties such as: tender and hard Ascolana, Carboncella, Nebbia del Menocchia and Sargano di San Benedetto. Frantoio, Leccino and Pendolino varieties have been introduced in more modern olive grove plantings. For its panoramic viewpoints, the ridge road that connects the hamlet of S. Savino to Acquaviva Picena, known as the "Strada del Rosso Piceno Superiore," among the first D.O.C. wines recognized in the Region crosses the vineyard landscapes of the Ripan hills, shaded by the beautiful colors that little by little Mother Nature paints, and gives to those who manage to stop a while in our territory: Wine production is expressed in other DOCs, such as Falerio dei Colli Ascolani and Offida. These include the traditional Vino Santo di Ripatransone produced of the inside of the city walls as opposed to the more widespread vino cotto. There is no lack of corridors of spontaneous oak trees, or elm; along the headlands of the plots the field maple, often defining boundaries between properties or arranged along the interpodal or vicinal roads, which connect on the backs of the various hills, the courtyards of individual farmhouses, in use or recovered for their high historical value, or to hamlets, then converging to municipal roads thus interweaving in a network that often opens into larger woods at the most significant slopes.