Small Producers, Oleotourism Take Center Stage at Ercole Olivario

Ercole Olivario, a com­pe­ti­tion for the best Italian extra vir­gin olive oils, con­cluded its 32^nd edi­tion on April 6^th in Perugia at the San Francesco al Prato audi­to­rium, a cul­tural land­mark in the Umbrian cap­i­tal city.

Promoted by the Italian Union of the Chambers of Commerce for Industry, Handicraft and Agriculture (Unioncamere), with the col­lab­o­ra­tion of the Umbria Chamber of Commerce, Ercole Olivario is the only insti­tu­tional national com­pe­ti­tion ded­i­cated to the olive oil sec­tor.

Expanded in recent years with the addi­tion of sev­eral side ini­tia­tives, the com­pe­ti­tion aims to pro­mote Italian olive oil pro­duc­ers and sup­port qual­ity-ori­ented com­pa­nies.

During the clos­ing event, Federico Sisti and Giorgio Mencaroni, the sec­re­tary gen­eral and pres­i­dent of the Umbria Chamber of Commerce, respec­tively, announced the 12 win­ners of the much-cov­eted tro­phy, con­sist­ing of a minia­ture replica of the tem­ple of Hercules Olivarius.

Two pro­duc­ers were awarded from Umbria, Sardinia and Puglia, and one pro­ducer from each of Trentino-Alto Adige, Tuscany, Molise, Campania, Calabria and Sicily also earned awards.

Half the win­ning pro­duc­ers have Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) and Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) cer­ti­fi­ca­tions.

The award-win­ning olive oils will be the sub­ject of the Shelf Life Monitoring Project, which will be car­ried out in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the University of Perugia.

“For this edi­tion, we have intro­duced this exper­i­men­tal research project that fur­ther con­firms the pres­tige of the com­pe­ti­tion,” Mencaroni said.

“It is per­formed through instru­men­tal and sen­sory analy­ses and focuses on data con­cern­ing the long-term stor­age of the final­ist extra vir­gin olive oils,” he added. ​“With spe­cial atten­tion to their health prop­er­ties, the study will pro­vide infor­ma­tion use­ful for both pro­duc­ers and con­sumers.”

Meanwhile, eight awards were given to pro­duc­ers from Sicily, Puglia, Lazio and Abruzzo at the fourth edi­tion of the table olive qual­ity con­test, with one award per pro­cess­ing method.

Additionally, three PDO Sicilian farm­ers and two Tuscan and Apulian pro­duc­ers were awarded at La Goccia d’Ercole (The Drop of Hercules), ded­i­cated to small-scale Italian pro­duc­ers.

Sisti said the side com­pe­ti­tion was estab­lished to give small-scale pro­duc­ers, some of whom do not meet min­i­mum pro­duc­tion require­ments for larger com­pe­ti­tions, a chance to exper­i­ment and have their extra vir­gin olive oils judged by an expert panel.

“It has indeed become an incu­ba­tor, where we are dis­cov­er­ing out­stand­ing extra vir­gin olive oils, and also an expe­ri­ence through which the farm­ers have the chance to train to par­tic­i­pate in the main con­test in the future and to face the global mar­ket com­pe­ti­tion bet­ter,” he said.

Regional pan­els selected the par­tic­i­pants in Ercole Olivario dur­ing tast­ing ses­sions car­ried out in the pre­vi­ous weeks. In some regions, the selec­tions took place through a com­pe­ti­tion.

Fifteen brands from Lazio were admit­ted after win­ning the Premio Roma Evo held at the Rome Chamber of Commerce, while 13 Umbrian brands were selected at the Oro Verde dell’Umbria con­test at its local cham­ber of com­merce.

The national con­test judg­ing panel con­sisted of 16 pro­fes­sional tasters from all the par­tic­i­pat­ing Italian regions, led by a panel leader and a coor­di­na­tor.

The event also saw the launch of the first report on oleo­tourism in Italy, the result of a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the asso­ci­a­tion Città dell’Olio, the Unaprol-Coldiretti con­sor­tium and Roberta Garibaldi, a lead­ing expert in food and wine tourism.

According to their study, the country’s oleo­tourism indus­try com­prises around one mil­lion com­pa­nies with a pro­duc­tion value of almost €2 bil­lion.

The report con­tains detailed data, other insights on the sec­tor’s attrac­tive­ness and the best prac­tices of Italian com­pa­nies devel­op­ing an oleo­touris­tic recep­tion project.

The Ercole Olivario orga­niz­ers recently intro­duced the Giorgio Phellas spe­cial award for oleo­tourism, which went to the Sicilian com­pany Mandranova.

“We are really delighted with this recog­ni­tion because we strongly believe in the poten­tial of oleo­tourism,” co-owner Silvia Di Vincenzo told Olive Oil Times. ​“Our com­pany is close to the Valley of the Temples of Agrigento, a UNESCO-listed site and tourism ref­er­ence point.”

“We have a recep­tive struc­ture where we host peo­ple from all over the world and involve them in mini-olive oil tast­ing courses,” she added. ​“These courses include an expla­na­tion of the entire pro­duc­tion process, infor­ma­tion on the nutri­tional prop­er­ties of extra vir­gin olive oil and sug­ges­tions for food pair­ings.”

“We want those who visit our com­pany to under­stand what a high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil is and what lies behind its pro­duc­tion,” Di Vincenzo con­tin­ued.

During the event, other spe­cial awards were handed out to com­pa­nies from Tuscany, Molise, Trentino-Alto Adige, Calabria and Umbria, which dis­tin­guished them­selves in var­i­ous areas, such as female and young entre­pre­neur­ship, dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tion and pack­ag­ing.

Finally, the best mono­va­ri­etal of the sea­son, pro­duced in Sardinia, received a men­tion of merit.

The Ercole Olivario win­ners for each cat­e­gory are:

Extra Virgin Olive Oil – Light Fruity

• First Classified: Molensis, Marina Colonna, Molise

Extra Virgin Olive Oil – Medium Fruity

• First Classified: GangaLupo, Azienda Agricola Bisceglie Maria, Puglia
• Second Classified: Alphabetum, Masoni Becciu di Deidda Valentina, Sardinia

Extra Virgin Olive Oil – Intense Fruity:

• First Classified: Concordu, Nicola Solinas, Sardinia
• Second Classified: Torchia, Oleificio Torchia, Calabria
• Third Classified: Schinosa, Aziende Agricole Di Martino, Puglia

PDO/PGI – Light Fruity:

• First Classified: Batta DOP Umbria Colli del Trasimeno, Frantoio Batta, Umbria

PDO/PGI – Medium Fruity:

• First Classified: Colleruita DOP Umbria Colli Assisi – Spoleto, Azienda Agraria Viola, Umbria
• Second Classified: Brioleum Garda DOP Trentino, Azienda Agricola Brioleum, Trentino-Alto Adige
• Third Classified: Agrestis Nettaribleo Dop/Bio DOP Monti Iblei – Monte Lauro, Società Cooperativa Agricola Agrestis, Sicily

PDO/PGI – Intense Fruity:

• First Classified: Hirpinia DOP Irpinia – Colline dell’Ufita, San Comaio, Campania
• Second Classified: Organic Bio IGP Toscano, Frantoio Franci, Tuscany

The Goccia d’Ercole win­ners are:

Extra Virgin Olive Oil:

• First Classified: Biologico, Società Agricola Buonamici Srl Unipersonale, Tuscany
• Second Classified: Rodonea, Società Agraria Petrizzelli Snc, Puglia
• Third Classified: Selezione del Conte, Tenuta il Corno, Tuscany

PDO/PGI:

• First Classified: Foglie di Platino IGP Sicilia Biancolilla Bio Premier Cru, Società Agricola Vincenzo Signorelli & Partners Srl, Sicily
• Second Classified: DOP Involio Nocellara del Belice, l’Azienda Vitivinicola Casa di Grazia di Di Francesco Maria Grazia, Sicily
• Third Classified: Don Peppino IGP Sicilia, Azienda Agricola Sikulus, Sicily

The Ercole Olivario web­site and social media pages pro­vide a com­plete list of the 2024 win­ners and infor­ma­tion on the sched­uled events.