`Italy's Monini Launches Australian Extra Virgin - Olive Oil Times
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enEnglishfrFrançaiselελληνικάdeDeutscheitItalianozh-CN中文ptPortuguêsesEspañoltrTürkçehrHrvatskija日本語hiहिंदी

Italy's Monini Launches Australian Extra Virgin

By Luciana Squadrilli
Sep. 7, 2011 10:10 UTC

Italian olive oil brand Monini, based in Umbria, recently launched its new extra vir­gin ​“Primissimo.” This new range hails from the Australian estate in Hillston in New South Wales, where the Monini fam­ily planted olive trees imported from Italy in 2004 and 2005.

Primissimo – which means ​“the very first one” – is actu­ally the first olive oil of the 2011 har­vest to appear on the Italian mar­ket, as Australia’s sea­sons (as well as har­vests) are inverted in respect to Europe’s. Monini’s Australian har­vest of the typ­i­cal Umbrian vari­eties Frantoio, Leccino and Pendolino took place in April when the aus­tral win­ter began, while in Italy they are usu­ally har­vested between October and November.

The com­pany says its Primissimo extra vir­gin has a medium intense fruiti­ness, with almond and green apple aro­mas, a har­mo­nious oil with a mod­er­ate pun­gency and a gen­tle hint of bit­ter­ness.

While the new prod­uct could be seen as a taunt in Italy where every­body expects the ​“new oil” in the autumn, Primissimo is mainly intended for the Australian mar­ket. However 10 per­cent of the 350,000-liter pro­duc­tion has already been bot­tled and put on the Italian mar­ket through Esselunga, one of the lead­ing Italian retail store chains.

European pro­duc­ers have lately been intro­duc­ing olive oil prod­ucts with New World ori­gins.

Colavita launched olive oils made in California and Australia, and Star Fine Foods, a divi­sion of Spain’s Borges Group, intro­duced an Arbequina from California’s Central Valley.

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