Italian Producers Explain What It Takes to Succeed in a Tough Campaign

“I have yet to meet some­one at the top of their career, a ​‘num­ber one,’ who does their job with­out pas­sion,” Giovanni Bonfiglio said, when asked about the key to suc­cess in such a dif­fi­cult year for Italian olive grow­ers.

“Passion leads you to pay atten­tion to detail, to take care each phase of the pro­duc­tion process and to work care­fully and thor­oughly,” he added. ​“That is exactly what qual­ity pro­duc­ers do.”

At Santa Catrini farm, near Siracusa, Nocellara Etnea and Biancolilla cul­ti­vars com­bine to cre­ate the award-win­ning Arita. Nocellara Messinese, Nocellara del Belice and Zaituna com­plete the com­po­si­tion of the olive grove man­aged by Bonfiglio.

“I can say that last year the cli­mate has not gone hand in hand with the life­cy­cle of the olive trees, which have been under stress, with an impact on pro­duc­tion,” the Sicilian pro­ducer noted, explain­ing that May was tor­rid and heavy rain fell in August.

“Since then, it has become fun­da­men­tal to con­stantly mon­i­tor the olive grove, in order to limit the effects of already unavoid­able extreme weather con­di­tions with prompt action,” Bonfiglio added. ​“All this requires a cer­tain pas­sion, thanks to which we have been able to achieve suc­cess at the 2019 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.”

The period of time between har­vest­ing and milling is another key fac­tor to obtain a great prod­uct, accord­ing to Silvio Marsan of San Bartolomeo, who won a Best in Class Award.

“We have the pos­si­bil­ity to imme­di­ately press the olives in our mill, which is adja­cent to the olive grove,” he said. ​“Many olives were swollen due to the amount of water that they con­tained after abun­dant rains, and then they were more sus­cep­ti­ble to dam­age dur­ing trans­porta­tion. But we took all the fruit to the mill in an hour after the har­vest, and this has cer­tainly improved the qual­ity of our extra vir­gin olive oil.”

“During the sea­son, it was fun­da­men­tal to inter­vene with all avail­able means,” Marsan added. ​“Organic treat­ments can be very effec­tive, then, for exam­ple, we used kaolin on our olive trees against the olive fruit fly.”

The olive groves of San Bartolomeo, which are mainly com­posed of Caninese with some Frantoio, Leccino, and Pendolino trees, are also home to free-range chick­ens. This type of inte­grated farm­ing helps pro­tect the land on which the olive trees are grown.

“[The chick­ens] enjoy the shade of the olive trees and con­tribute to their fer­til­iza­tion,” Marsan said.

Proper stew­ard­ship of the land was a com­mon theme among suc­cess­ful pro­duc­ers last har­vest sea­son. Teamwork was too. In light of unusual weather dur­ing the olive har­vest­ing sea­son, it was impor­tant for pro­duc­ers to get the fruit off all the trees and to the mills as quickly as pos­si­ble.

“Our key to suc­cess is our land,” said Alex Korop, co-owner with his wife, Ella, of Sant’Anastasio farm, which is man­aged in part­ner­ship with pro­duc­tion direc­tor David Giacomelli.

“We are blessed with a unique land, and every olive that goes into our Elleivæ Biologico comes from our plot of land located on the hills of Pontassieve, near Florence,” Korop said. ​“Another strong point is our peo­ple, who pas­sion­ately work on this land.”

Korop said that the fam­ily and Giacomelli have a plan to reha­bil­i­tate 2,300 olive trees and are con­sid­er­ing the pos­si­bil­ity of expan­sion in the same val­ley through long term leases or pur­chases of land.

“To obtain a good prod­uct it is also impor­tant to press the olives within a short time after being picked, and then we press every batch on the same day of the har­vest,” he said, adding that they man­age their groves com­pletely organ­i­cally.

“We recently bought a plot with trees that have not been treated prop­erly for quite some time, and now we need to prune and recover them,” Korop added. ​“This process is expected to take three years, dur­ing which we will work with the usual com­mit­ment to qual­ity and respect for the envi­ron­ment.”

Once again, the soil is iden­ti­fied as an essen­tial ele­ment for the qual­ity of the extra vir­gin olive oil made by Saverio Luzzi at Villa La Ripa.

“This land is very rich in sul­fur com­pounds, and I believe that, in cer­tain years espe­cially, these pro­mote the devel­op­ment of excep­tional organolep­tic char­ac­ter­is­tics in our prod­ucts,” the Tuscan pro­ducer and neu­ropsy­chi­a­trist said.

Luzzi gave the name of Psyco to his blend of Leccino, Frantoio and Moraiolo. His olive trees sur­round an old Renaissance-era farm­house, built around a tower from the year 1000 on the gen­tle hills of Arezzo, in the heart of Tuscany.

“Moreover, it is impor­tant to iden­tify the right time for har­vest­ing,” he added. ​“Now, I can say that an early har­vest was cru­cial this year; then the olives were imme­di­ately brought to the mill, as we pressed them in no more than two hours, and this allowed us to obtain excel­lent results in such a dif­fi­cult sea­son.”

While proper stew­ard­ship of the land and har­vest­ing at the right time are both cru­cial to pro­duc­ing an award-win­ning oil, doing so year in and year out requires per­se­ver­ance.

“Considering the dif­fi­cul­ties we expe­ri­enced over the last four cam­paigns, I can say that the secret is being con­stant and per­se­ver­ant,” Claudio De Luca said.

At Case d’Alto, he makes his mono­va­ri­etal Coevo Ravece from olive groves located between Grottaminarda and Flumeri.

“A con­tin­u­ous mon­i­tor­ing of the plants, organ­i­cally man­aged, allowed us to detect the first attack of the olive fruit fly,” he said, explain­ing that they acted imme­di­ately and saved the fruits thanks to the appli­ca­tion of kaolin and both sticky and attrac­tant traps, which release an intense smell in the fields. Thus, healthy olives were quickly brought to the mill.

“Despite the com­plex year that required more work and there­fore higher costs, prices remained unchanged since last year,” De Luca added. ​“We want to meet our con­sumers’ needs, try­ing to offer them an excel­lent Ravece mono­va­ri­etal every year.”

Along with team­work, per­se­ver­ance and main­tain­ing the olive groves in a respon­si­ble way, Marco Prosseda of DueNoveSei said that pay­ing atten­tion to the small­est details and every day minu­tiae is key to con­sis­tently pro­duc­ing high qual­ity olive oils.

“I think that the small things we do every day, day after day, are fun­da­men­tal to obtain a suc­cess­ful prod­uct,” Prosseda said. ​“This becomes even more clear after last win­ter’s frost: what appeared to be a dis­as­ter, turned out to be an oppor­tu­nity to improve, as we returned to the olive grove and real­ized that it was more nec­es­sary than ever to pay atten­tion to every lit­tle detail and act with great care to heal the harmed olive trees, start­ing from a thor­ough ad-hoc prun­ing.”

In his olive groves, sur­rounded by the Sabina hills, Prosseda grows native cul­ti­vars such as Carboncella and Salviana, which were blended in the Gold award-win­ning Rosalena with Leccio del Corno and Itrana. Rosciola, Frantoio and Pendolino are also grown on the cal­care­ous soil of Moricone, at the feet of the Lucretili Mountains regional nat­ural park.

“We also made changes in mar­ket­ing strat­egy, as we reduced our pro­duc­tion lines from four to two, and this has been effec­tive,” Prosseda said. ​“From prun­ing to pests mon­i­tor­ing, from har­vest­ing the dif­fer­ent vari­eties to the crush­ing in the short­est pos­si­ble time, from stor­ing the oil in tanks under nitro­gen to blend­ing it, while keep­ing it in opti­mal con­di­tions.”

“Each small ges­ture made through­out the pro­duc­tion cycle has allowed us to make the dif­fer­ence between the ordi­nary and the extra­or­di­nary,” he added.