Which Agrimontana jar? Extra jams, fruit spreads and ZERO

Agrimontana have made preserves at Borgo San Dalmazzo, at the foot of the Piedmontese Alps, since 1972. They were among the first Italian houses to stop using sulphites, and they work without colourings or preservatives. We stock four kinds of their jars: eleven fruit spreads in 330 g, three extra jams made from particular fruit varieties, two marmalades and the ZERO range with no added sugar.

Fruit spread or extra jam

The front of the jar tells you which is which. The 330 g jars say "spread" in English and "préparation" in French. Three jars say "extra jam": Mara des Bois, Pêche des Vignes and the wild cherry.

"Extra jam" is a protected description in UK law. The regulations require at least 450 g of fruit for every kilogram of extra jam, against 350 g for plain jam, and the fruit has to go in as pulp or purée that has not been concentrated. The three Agrimontana extra jams use 72 g to 107 g of fruit for every 100 g.

The labels state fruit in two ways. Most give a percentage of the finished jar. Some say instead how many grams of fruit went into each 100 g, and that figure can pass 100, because water boils off in the pan and the jar weighs less than the fruit that went into it.

The 330 g fruit spreads

• Cherry, 97% fruit, with barely room in the jar for anything else
• Sour cherry, 95%, sharp rather than sweet
• Wild blueberry, 84%, nearly black
• Quince, 75%
• Apricot, peach, plum, raspberry and strawberry, 72% each. The raspberry is not sieved, so the seeds stay in.
• Bitter orange with peel, 70% oranges plus 2.7% peel cut into strips
• Fig, 65%, the least sharp of them

They go on toast, into a tart, through yoghurt or onto a cheeseboard, where the fruit cuts through something aged and salty.

The extra jams

Each of the three is made from one named fruit. Mara des Bois is a French strawberry bred to taste like a wild one, 72 g of fruit per 100 g. Pêche des Vignes is the small, red-fleshed peach that ripens among the vines, 73 g per 100 g. The wild cherry jar is made with 107 g of fruit for every 100 g of jam and set without added pectin.

Two marmalades

The bergamot and the lemon marmalade made with Limone Costa d'Amalfi PGI are made with 30 g of fruit per 100 g. Bergamot is the citrus that flavours Earl Grey, and it is too bitter to eat raw. The Amalfi lemon zest is cut by hand.

ZERO

The ZERO jams come in 290 g jars: apricot, orange, peach, strawberry, sweet and sour cherry and wild berries. They are made with 50 g of fruit per 100 g and no added sugar, sweetened with erythritol, maltitol and sucralose. That brings them to 33 to 45 kcal per 100 g, where the sugar-set jars run from 176 to 258. The fruit keeps its own sugars, 3 to 7 g per 100 g depending on the flavour, so the labels say "no added sugars" rather than sugar free. ZERO sets softer than the sugar-set jars and spreads easily straight from the fridge.

Before you open a jar

Several of the stone-fruit labels, among them apricot, peach, plum, cherry, sour cherry and wild cherry, warn that a fragment of pit or kernel may be present. Keep unopened jars in a cool, dry place and put a jar in the fridge once it is open. The whole range, including the small breakfast jars, is on the jams and creams shelf.

Reviewed 26 September 2026.