A New Home for ALMA Frequency in Sicily’s Emerging Blue Zone
As Sicily’s Caltabellota region emerges as contender for Blue Zone status, Alma Frequency announces the 5-star Rocco Forte Verdura Resort as its base for the 2026 edition of the festival, with a theme of ‘optimal living’.
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by Maya Boyd
What if the secret to living well into your nineties was not hidden in a laboratory, but in a mountain village an hour from the sea?
For decades, scientists searching for the world’s longest-lived populations have studied a handful of places known as Blue Zones: regions where people routinely live into their 90s and beyond while maintaining remarkable health and vitality. From the mountains of Sardinia to the Greek island of Ikaria, Okinawa in Japan and Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, these longevity hotspots have transformed our understanding of ageing.
Now, evidence suggests Sicily may be home to its own emerging Blue Zone.
High in the Sicani Mountains, inland from Sicily’s south-west coast, lies Caltabellotta, a medieval hilltop village perched beneath Mount Kratas. Life moves slowly here. Narrow streets wind between stone houses and church squares. Yet according to recent research led by longevity experts Professor Giovanni Mario Pes and Professor Calogero Caruso, this small community may hold important clues to living longer and better.
The Blue Zone concept was popularised by explorer Dan Buettner alongside researchers including demographer Michel Poulain and Gianni Pes. Studying populations with unusually high concentrations of centenarians, they discovered a striking pattern. Exceptional longevity was rarely linked to cutting-edge medicine or expensive interventions. Instead, it emerged from simple habits repeated over a lifetime: regular movement, strong social bonds, meaningful purpose, nutrient-dense diets and environments that naturally reduce stress. According to Buettner,
“The longest-lived people in the world didn’t wake up every day and say, ‘I’m going to chase longevity today.’ Instead, they built environments where the healthy choice becomes the natural choice.”
Caltabellotta appears to be one of these environments. A 2025 study examining demographic records from the municipality and surrounding Sicani Mountains found significantly higher rates of nonagenarians and centenarians than regional and national averages. Among residents born between 1900 and 1924, the proportion reaching age 90 rose from 3.6 per cent to 14 per cent. Even more remarkably, around one in every 166 people born during that period reached the age of 100.
Researchers point to several interconnected factors.
The first is diet. Long before the Mediterranean diet became a global wellness trend, it was simply a way of life. Meals centred on vegetables, legumes, olive oil, wild greens, seasonal fruit and modest amounts of fish and dairy. Food was local, seasonal and deeply connected to the landscape.
Movement is equally important. Unlike modern fitness routines, physical activity here has traditionally been built into daily life. Steep streets, agricultural work and walking between villages created a pattern of constant low-intensity movement that researchers increasingly recognise as one of the most powerful predictors of healthy ageing.
Then there is community.
Across all Blue Zones, strong social connections consistently emerge as one of the greatest contributors to longevity. In Caltabellotta, relationships remain woven into daily life. Generations stay connected. Neighbours know one another. Social interaction is not something scheduled into the day but something that naturally shapes it.
The environment itself also plays a role. The Sicani Mountains remain among Sicily’s least industrialised regions, with clean air, low levels of pollution and a closerelationship with nature. Increasing evidence suggests these factors help reduce chronic stress while supporting both physical and mental wellbeing.
Perhaps most fascinating is what Caltabellotta reveals about modern wellness culture. While longevity is often framed through biohacking, supplements and optimisation, the lessons emerging from Blue Zones are surprisingly simple. Health appears to be less about adding extraordinary things into life and more about preserving the conditions that allow humans to thrive: nourishing food, meaningful relationships, daily movement and a slower pace of living.
Just forty minutes from Caltabellotta, the Rocco Forte Verdura Resort stretches along Sicily’s south-western coastline between citrus groves and the Mediterranean Sea. This September, it will host the Alma Frequency Wellness Festival, bringing together leading voices in longevity, nutrition, movement and wellbeing.
The setting could hardly be more fitting. While conversations at the festival will explore the future of health, the mountains above Verdura offer a powerful reminder that some of the most enduring answers may already exist within communities that have quietly practised them for generations.
The story of Caltabellotta is not simply about living longer. It is about living well. In a world increasingly obsessed with lifespan, this small Sicilian village points towards something more valuable: healthspan, vitality and connection.
For those attending Alma Frequency this September, some of the festival’s most profound lessons may lie beyond the resort itself, in a mountain community that has been quietly demonstrating the principles of longevity for decades.
by Maya Boyd
What if the secret to living well into your nineties was not hidden in a laboratory, but in a mountain village an hour from the sea?
For decades, scientists searching for the world’s longest-lived populations have studied a handful of places known as Blue Zones: regions where people routinely live into their 90s and beyond while maintaining remarkable health and vitality. From the mountains of Sardinia to the Greek island of Ikaria, Okinawa in Japan and Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, these longevity hotspots have transformed our understanding of ageing.
Now, evidence suggests Sicily may be home to its own emerging Blue Zone.
High in the Sicani Mountains, inland from Sicily’s south-west coast, lies Caltabellotta, a medieval hilltop village perched beneath Mount Kratas. Life moves slowly here. Narrow streets wind between stone houses and church squares. Yet according to recent research led by longevity experts Professor Giovanni Mario Pes and Professor Calogero Caruso, this small community may hold important clues to living longer and better.
The Blue Zone concept was popularised by explorer Dan Buettner alongside researchers including demographer Michel Poulain and Gianni Pes. Studying populations with unusually high concentrations of centenarians, they discovered a striking pattern. Exceptional longevity was rarely linked to cutting-edge medicine or expensive interventions. Instead, it emerged from simple habits repeated over a lifetime: regular movement, strong social bonds, meaningful purpose, nutrient-dense diets and environments that naturally reduce stress. According to Buettner,
“The longest-lived people in the world didn’t wake up every day and say, ‘I’m going to chase longevity today.’ Instead, they built environments where the healthy choice becomes the natural choice.”
Caltabellotta appears to be one of these environments. A 2025 study examining demographic records from the municipality and surrounding Sicani Mountains found significantly higher rates of nonagenarians and centenarians than regional and national averages. Among residents born between 1900 and 1924, the proportion reaching age 90 rose from 3.6 per cent to 14 per cent. Even more remarkably, around one in every 166 people born during that period reached the age of 100.
Researchers point to several interconnected factors.
The first is diet. Long before the Mediterranean diet became a global wellness trend, it was simply a way of life. Meals centred on vegetables, legumes, olive oil, wild greens, seasonal fruit and modest amounts of fish and dairy. Food was local, seasonal and deeply connected to the landscape.
Movement is equally important. Unlike modern fitness routines, physical activity here has traditionally been built into daily life. Steep streets, agricultural work and walking between villages created a pattern of constant low-intensity movement that researchers increasingly recognise as one of the most powerful predictors of healthy ageing.
Then there is community.
Across all Blue Zones, strong social connections consistently emerge as one of the greatest contributors to longevity. In Caltabellotta, relationships remain woven into daily life. Generations stay connected. Neighbours know one another. Social interaction is not something scheduled into the day but something that naturally shapes it.
The environment itself also plays a role. The Sicani Mountains remain among Sicily’s least industrialised regions, with clean air, low levels of pollution and a closerelationship with nature. Increasing evidence suggests these factors help reduce chronic stress while supporting both physical and mental wellbeing.
Perhaps most fascinating is what Caltabellotta reveals about modern wellness culture. While longevity is often framed through biohacking, supplements and optimisation, the lessons emerging from Blue Zones are surprisingly simple. Health appears to be less about adding extraordinary things into life and more about preserving the conditions that allow humans to thrive: nourishing food, meaningful relationships, daily movement and a slower pace of living.
Just forty minutes from Caltabellotta, the Rocco Forte Verdura Resort stretches along Sicily’s south-western coastline between citrus groves and the Mediterranean Sea. This September, it will host the Alma Frequency Wellness Festival, bringing together leading voices in longevity, nutrition, movement and wellbeing.
The setting could hardly be more fitting. While conversations at the festival will explore the future of health, the mountains above Verdura offer a powerful reminder that some of the most enduring answers may already exist within communities that have quietly practised them for generations.
The story of Caltabellotta is not simply about living longer. It is about living well. In a world increasingly obsessed with lifespan, this small Sicilian village points towards something more valuable: healthspan, vitality and connection.
For those attending Alma Frequency this September, some of the festival’s most profound lessons may lie beyond the resort itself, in a mountain community that has been quietly demonstrating the principles of longevity for decades.
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