The Siracusa Lemon: A Lemon for Every Season

Most people come to Syracuse for the Greeks. The city was founded in the eighth century BC, grew into one of the largest in the ancient Mediterranean, and was home to Archimedes, who, legend says, shouted "Eureka!" in his bath and later held off a Roman fleet with his machines. Cicero called it the greatest and most beautiful of all Greek cities. Today its old town, the island of Ortigia, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, full of temples, a Roman amphitheatre and baroque churches.

But leave the city behind and drive in any direction, and you will find something different: lemon trees, and a lot of them. Syracuse (Siracusa in Italian) is the lemon capital of Italy. Almost a third of all the lemons grown in the country come from this single province in the south-east corner of Sicily. And the lemon pickers here have very little time off, because the trees never really stop. The Limone di Siracusa is on the market for most of the year, and it changes its character with every season.

Italy's Lemon Capital

The protected area of the Limone di Siracusa IGP covers ten municipalities: Siracusa, Augusta, Avola, Floridia, Melilli, Noto, Priolo Gargallo, Rosolini, Solarino and Sortino. The rules are strict about where a grove can be. It must sit within 10 kilometres of the coast and no higher than 210 metres above sea level. Like any good Mediterranean, the lemon tree does not like the hills. It wants the sea, the light and, above all, water.

Water is the secret of this corner of Sicily. The groves lie on a strip of coast facing the Ionian Sea, about 50 kilometres long from north to south, and behind them are the Iblei Mountains. Three rivers come down from those mountains towards the groves: the Anapo, the Asinaro and the Marcellino. Beneath the surface lies something even more important: the aquifer of the Iblean plateau, one of the largest natural underground reservoirs in the whole of Sicily. A lemon tree drinks a great deal, because it keeps flowering and fruiting almost without a pause, and here it never goes thirsty.

The soils are alluvial and rich in limestone, the winters are mild and humid, and the sun is generous but not brutal. There is one more helper, which growers like to point out. In summer, the sea breeze carries salt onto the leaves, where it works as a natural disinfectant, helping to keep the trees healthy. Many groves are farmed organically, often mixed with oranges, mandarins and grapefruit. In spring, when all of them bloom at once, the air of the Syracusan countryside is heavy with zagara, the scent of citrus blossom.

From Burma to Syracuse

Local tradition says the lemon tree reached Syracuse around two thousand years ago, at the end of a long journey that started in Burma, in South-East Asia, and passed through Mesopotamia, Persia and Palestine. How and when it arrived exactly is hard to prove, but one thing is clear: when the Arabs and then the Normans came to Sicily, more than a thousand years ago, lemons were already growing here.

The first big change came in the seventeenth century, with the Jesuits. The fathers were expert farmers, and they saw how well lemon trees grew in this soil. They began to cultivate them in a more organised and intensive way, and the lemon soon became one of the pillars of the local economy.

By the nineteenth century, a lemon grove had become a very good investment. Around Syracuse, a hectare of lemons could earn up to eleven times more than a hectare of vineyard, and owning citrus land was a sign that a family was doing well. Exports began in the second half of the century, first to England, then to Russia and the United States.

In the twentieth century, the lemon went industrial. Factories around Syracuse began to turn lemons into products for the rest of the world: agrocotto, a concentrated lemon juice, and then calcium citrate and citric acid, which the food and drinks industry needed in large quantities. Most of it went to the United States and England. After the Second World War, two brothers from Giarre, on the Etna coast, patented the first automatic machine for squeezing citrus, the birillatrice, and it soon spread across the Mediterranean. The market went through booms and crises, as markets do, but the groves kept growing, and the lemon has remained at the centre of Syracusan farming ever since.

One Tree, Three Lemons

The protected variety is the Femminello, and more precisely the local Femminello Siracusano and its clones. If you have been following our journey through Italy’s seven IGP lemons, you have met this family before: it is the same generous, repeat-flowering lemon that grows on the Gargano, in Rocca Imperiale and on the slopes of Etna. Its name comes from its fertility. A Femminello tree flowers several times a year, which means there is almost always fruit on its branches, at one stage or another.

In Syracuse, this gives three different lemons from the same tree, each with its own season and its own personality.

The Primofiore ("first flower") is the winter lemon, and the main event. It comes from the spring bloom, and the harvest opens on 1 October and runs until April. The Primofiore is elliptical and medium to large, weighing at least 100 grams. Its skin is smooth and rich in essential oils. It starts out a deep green, then turns a little more yellow every day until it is uniform lemon-yellow. It is also the juiciest of the three: the rules require at least 34% juice by weight, with a firm acidity of at least 6%. This is the lemon that made Syracuse's reputation, and the one most people picture when they think of a Sicilian lemon.

The Bianchetto, also called Maiolino, is the spring lemon, picked from April to the end of June. It is larger and rounder, sometimes slightly flattened, with a paler, rougher skin. The juice is less acidic and a little less sweet, so the flavour is gentler, while the aroma stays intense. It is still a juicy lemon, with at least 30% juice by weight, but it is the more delicate of the two yellow lemons, and that makes it a good match for food rather than for drinks.

The Verdello is the summer lemon, and it takes its name from its colour: verde, green. It ripens in the hottest and driest months, from early summer to the end of September. Its skin is smooth and light green, and it is round, almost like a lime, with citrine-yellow flesh and hardly any seeds. It is the least juicy of the three (the minimum is 25%) and has less sugar, but its perfume is fresher and sharper than that of the yellow lemons. To get this summer lemon, for a long time, growers here used forzatura, the same technique we saw on Etna: the trees were left without water for a few weeks, then watered and fed heavily, which pushed them into a second flowering. Today most growers no longer need it. Sicilian summers have become so hot and dry that the drought alone puts the trees under enough stress, and the local Femminello flowers again on its own at the end of summer. The small lemons from that bloom spend the winter on the branches and are picked the following summer.

Taken together, the three harvests mean that the Siracusa lemon is available almost all year round. When one lemon leaves the market, the next is already on its way.

Picked by Hand, Chosen One by One

A lemon grove that never rests needs people who never rest either. The IGP groves around Syracuse cover about 1,450 hectares, and every lemon is picked by hand. Pickers cut each fruit at the stem with small, palm-sized scissors made for the job, as close to the skin as possible, so that the stem cannot damage the other fruit in the crate. It is the same method used for centuries, passed down from one generation to the next.

After this, the lemons are selected. For the Limone di Siracusa, quality is a question of both inside and outside. On the inside, the fruit must meet minimums for juice, acidity and sweetness. On the outside, it must have the right size and shape, and no visible defects. Only the lemons that pass both tests reach the fresh market with the IGP logo, and every box or net sold under the name must have it.

The lemons that fail the beauty test are not wasted. They go to processing, and they are in high demand. The peel of the Siracusa lemon is thick, fine-grained and full of oil glands, and its essential oils are rich in neral and geranial, the two compounds that together make citral, the molecule of lemon flavour. That makes them valuable to cosmetics companies and to some of the world's major fragrance houses. The juice, high in vitamin C and citric acid, goes to the food industry, which uses it in everything from liqueurs and sweets to ice cream and snacks. Several famous brands have launched special editions made with it.

The IGP was registered by the European Union in 2011. The Consorzio that protects it is older: it has been at work since July 2000 and today counts more than 160 members, among them growers, packers, food companies and ambassadors. In 2023, more than 13,700 tonnes of certified Siracusa lemons came to market. Recently, the Consorzio has taken its lemon on tour across Italy, Poland and Romania with an EU-backed campaign, reaching millions of people with TV adverts, posters in railway stations and street events.

At the Table

Each of the three lemons has its own place in the kitchen.

The Primofiore is the one to squeeze. With all that juice and acidity, it is the natural choice for a spremuta, fresh lemon juice with water and sugar, and for anything where you want a clear, sharp lemon flavour. Its oily peel is also perfect for grating into cakes and biscuits.

The Bianchetto, less acidic and more delicate, is the cook's lemon. Sicilians use it to lift the flavour of fish, to tenderise meat, to dress salads, to season vegetables and to bring a sauce to life. A local favourite is arancinetti with lemon and saffron, small versions of the famous Sicilian rice balls.

The Verdello is a favourite with chefs, especially for fish dishes, and with anyone who finds most lemons too aggressive. Its real treasure, though, is the oil in its green peel, which makes it prized for lemon liqueur. The liqueur made from Verdelli has a floral, well-rounded perfume and is easy to drink. In Syracuse it closes a meal, served next to fresh fruit or small almond pastries, in pure Sicilian style.

A small tip from the Consorzio, if you bring some Siracusa lemons home: keep them in the fridge or in a cool, dry place, ideally between 6 and 12°C.

Why This Lemon Matters to Us

Every chapter of this series has taught us something. The Amalfi Coast lemon showed us heroic farming on impossible terraces, the Etna lemon showed us ingenuity at the foot of a volcano, and the Interdonato lemon of Messina showed us how one man's idea can become a lemon of its own. Syracuse teaches us generosity, because this lemon does not wait for its moment. It flowers, fruits and flowers again, giving winter lemons for squeezing, spring lemons for cooking and summer lemons for drinking, on the same trees. It feeds families, factories, perfumers and pastry shops, and it has done so for centuries, from the Jesuit groves to the juice machines of the twentieth century.

There is also a small detail we like very much. When Syracuse first began to send its lemons abroad in the nineteenth century, one of the first places they went was England. More than a hundred years later, we are proud to continue that story and to bring the lemons of Italy's lemon capital a little closer to the rest of the world.