We’ll have to make the bruschetta “Spanish style”. We are the people who consume the most extra virgin olive oil in the world – around 12 kilos each – and at one time, which now seems remote, we were also the first producers. This year, if all goes well, we will be fifth in the rankings: it is a “discharge” year, as they say among oil millers. Blame the drought in the South, the long wave of Xylella, but also a profound ignorance of oil. Research by Unaprol, relaunched by the Georgofili Academy, warns that half of consumers are not able to recognize a quality product and that just 2.3 percent of food spending is intended for the purchase of oil which is – in a third of cases – directly from the mill.
So it happens that on the one hand there is little willingness to invest in the purchase of quality oils and on the other a very strong dependence on foreign countries; we consume 500 thousand tons a year, we sell about 130 thousand abroad and we have to import 78 percent of the oil we need. According to Ismea’s – reliable – calculations we have lost 200 thousand hectares in 20 years and we are now under one million hectares planted with olive trees. Also considering the monumental, centuries-old olive groves which are an essential feature of our landscape and a crucial cultivation aid to prevent the Apennines from collapsing downstream.
Those who only look at the olive tree as a productive plant argue that we should switch to the Spanish method: hyper-intensive cultivation, on the plains, transforming olive growing into fruit growing.
However, Spain only knows 80 cultivars, while in Italy there are 500 registered “types” of olives and are linked to different territories. Perhaps the path is maximum quality with maximum recognisability, convincing the consumer that not all oils are the same. Barbara Alfei, an official of the Marche Region, began this journey many years ago, launching the first competition for monovarietal oils. It was a huge success and today the best Italian oils that bottle the dialect of the landscapes win all the world competitions. Enrico Lupi – honorary president of the Città dell’olio Association which he led for twenty years – has been fighting for years for the recognition of historic olive groves. His is the law of the anti-refill cap (it does not allow the packaging of oil to be tampered with), his is the initiative to launch oil restaurants and oil tourism to support producers. Because another Italian limit is the size of the companies: 11 hectares on average compared to the Spanish 34. «It is essential», says Lupi, who is organizing the Olioliva event in Imperia from 8 to 10 November, «to increase farmers’ income, convince consumers that oil is not just a condiment, enhance the landscape-quality relationship and focus on diversification of the offer”.
They know this well in Western Liguria, where the Taggiasca olive – introduced by the Benedictine monks – has exploded as a table olive. The Americans have understood this and, with the approval of the Food and Drug Administration, have designated extra virgin olive oil as a food-drug and for our very high quality oils the US is the first market. Because the business is there anyway: olive oil is worth over 3.5 billion euros. Even in a year of “unloading” something is moving: quality extra virgin olive oils have begun to have a market similar to that of wine and it has become a female product because so many women entrepreneurs have bet on the olive tree.
Mariella Organi, the best maître in Italy and wife of chef Moreno Cedroni, has been offering customers bread and extra virgin olive oil alla Madonnina del Pescatore di Senigallia as a sign of welcome for years and many now imitate her. Yet we have to look at the world from the bottom up. Spain doubled last year’s production to 1.6 million tonnes. We are surpassed by Tunisia (370 thousand tonnes), Turkey (320 thousand) and even Greece, which has had much greater drought problems than ours, will produce 270 thousand tonnes. If things go really well, we will reach 240 thousand tons, which means a quarter less than 2023.
Yet there are those like Matteo Frescobaldi – the youngest of the Florentine dynasty of great wine producers – who has made extra virgin olive oil an absolute brand by exploiting Bona Frescobaldi’s intuition to create the Laudemio brand around their extra virgin olive oils, which today has a experienced similar to that of French legend perfumes. Women and oil is the winning combination. Says Maria Rosaria Trama, professor of Latin and Greek, owner with her family of Le Colline di Zenone in Ascea in Cilento, «extra virgin olive oil is a product of culture: here we read the philosopher Zeno, we stage Greek theater for tourists which reclaim the Mediterranean soul. Our Pisciottana variety plants (they are gigantic!) give us an oil of the highest quality and recognisability this year too. For us it is an excellent year.”
It’s also good in Tuscany. «I’m happy with both the harvest and the beating of the olives» says Fiorella Lenzi, high quality producer in the enchanting Maremma area of Massa Marittima, «it was a complicated year, but even if less is produced the results are satisfying».
The same goes for the Adriatic: in Recanati where the Gabrielloni sisters manage a historic oil mill and a farmhouse with Leopardian charm. «We remained tied to the oil mill with the fiscoli» says Elisabetta Gabrielloni «because we love the scent of the pressed oil: the quality this year is very high». Talking about olive oil mills in the Marche region is a must because Pieralisi is here, the most important manufacturer of olive oil machinery in the world. In the world almost all oil mills have Italian mechanics – a district worth over 10 billion – which with constant research has improved production even if Elisabetta Gabrielloni defends the traditional system.
The Pnrr has allocated 100 million to improve the oil mills, a sign that Italy is once again focusing on olive growing. And in Italy there are 4,300 – in Spain we are under two thousand – because there is a tendency to “break” in proximity to avoid fermentation effects. «It is an advantage for those who cultivate to have their own oil mill» claims Luciana Cerbini Picuti, a former matrimonial lawyer who left behind her stamped papers to take care of her parents at Casa Gola in Bevagna (PG) from which she obtains the «best» extra virgin olive oil for the Americans, «indeed it is a guarantee that the quality that we produce in the field is transferred to the bottle. This oil is a product of the highest agricultural craftsmanship and of absolute cultural value. For 2024 we won’t have much of it, but here in Bevagna it’s exceptional.”
Furthermore, Umbria is a sort of paradigm of extra virgin olive oil. Marco Bencivenga has been working for years to obtain UNESCO recognition for the olive grove that goes from Assisi to Spoleto: almost 60 kilometers of hills entirely covered in historic olive groves with plants that are more than a thousand years old. Here Chiara Lungarotti – great wines – preserves in her oil museum, the most important in Europe in Torgiano, an ancient memory of three thousand years including amphorae, craters, lanterns, archeology of extra virgin olive oil.
Finally, in the area coexist “jewelers” such as Viola in Foligno or Marfuga, world champion in Campello sul Clitunno, and champions such as the Farchioni di Giano of Umbria or Monini who has made Spoleto a world oil capital. Zefferino Monini himself, surprising everyone, claimed that this year, given the large global production, prices will drop by 40 percent. It’s difficult to say, at least for the 43 Italian PDOs and for niche productions that only use local cultivars. Valentino Carta from Oliena, where there is the «nera», an absolute jewel among Sardinian products, states: «Scarce, but excellent production: keep prices down for those who grow here in Barbagia at the foot of Mount Corrasi, with very high costs and enormous effort, is condemning oneself to the abandonment of plants.”
For an Italian bruschetta (reading the labels carefully is a problem: they are unclear, but Brussels does not want to change them and the extra virgin olive oil can be made with EU and non-EU olives or with only national olives, yet there is a huge difference between an extra virgin and a virgin) will take no less than 15 euros per liter this year. If you want to save money, however, there is always Spain. n
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