Al Piglio Seeks to Tap Potential of Frosinone’s Understated Terroir

Over the past three years, Elisabetta Petrini and her fam­ily have trans­formed six hectares of par­tially neglected ancient olive groves in cen­tral Italy into an award-win­ning extra vir­gin olive oil oper­a­tion.

Al Piglio fin­ished the 2023/24 har­vest on a high, earn­ing a Silver Award for its Mezzogiorno brand, a medium-inten­sity organic Moraiolo mono­va­ri­etal, at the 2024 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

“We are over­joyed to learn that we have received an award at the NYIOOC World Olive Competition,” she said. ​“For me, it’s a dream come true.”

The world’s most pres­ti­gious qual­ity con­test applauded Al Puglio for its tast­ing sen­sa­tions of arti­choke, fig leaf, olive leaf, black pep­per and cof­fee.

“After study­ing as an olive oil som­me­lier, research­ing the best ways to man­age the pro­duc­tion process, and con­stantly seek­ing advice from those who are more knowl­edge­able and skilled, receiv­ing this recog­ni­tion is not only a great sat­is­fac­tion but, above all, a moti­va­tion to seek improve­ment con­tin­u­ously,” Petrini added.

Along with Moraiolo, Al Piglio grows Rosciola and Leccino olives in the province of Frosinone, about 55 kilo­me­ters east of Rome.

“Rosciola is a beau­ti­ful local cul­ti­var that thrives in our rocky hills,” Petrini said. ​“It has many unique char­ac­ter­is­tics and is sub­ject to early har­vest because it ripens ear­lier than the other olive vari­eties we grow.”

Apart from a hand­ful of excep­tions, the region around Piglia in north­ern Frosinone is not known for pro­duc­ing extra vir­gin olive oil.

“This was the first chal­lenge we faced,” Petrini said. ​“The local olive oil cul­ture, rooted in ancient prac­tices, does not typ­i­cally pri­or­i­tize qual­ity as we under­stand it today.”

As in many other regions of the coun­try, a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of small olive groves in the area are fam­ily-owned. When pro­duc­tive, these groves are pri­mar­ily used for the fam­i­ly’s own con­sump­tion. Pruning, fer­til­iz­ing and har­vest­ing often fol­low meth­ods passed down through gen­er­a­tions.

“When I told the locals that we wanted to har­vest Rosciola first, mean­ing in early October, some were incred­u­lous,” Petrini said. ​“Most of them are accus­tomed to har­vest­ing in December.”

Finding the right part­ner for milling the olives also proved chal­leng­ing. ​“Most mills here would only open at the end of October,” Petrini said. ​“We had to look else­where and found the right mills in the Colline Pontine area.”

It takes Petrini 30 to 45 min­utes to trans­port the olives from the grove to the mill. However, she hopes that her recent suc­cess at the World Competition will encour­age mills to start open­ing ear­lier in the sea­son.

“Look at Rosciola and other local cul­ti­vars,” Petrini said. ​“There’s so much poten­tial here. Growers and the entire pro­duc­tion chain need to rec­og­nize that much can be achieved. This is a unique ter­ri­tory with a unique her­itage.”

This aware­ness is also reflected in the touris­tic venue Petrini and her fam­ily have built around their olive groves and vine­yards.

“When our guests stay overnight in our suites or come for din­ner at our restau­rant, we pro­vide them with a list of extra vir­gin olive oils from all over Italy,” she said. ​“Moreover, we dis­cuss extra vir­gin olive oil qual­ity and char­ac­ter­is­tics with them.”

“Together, we taste three excel­lent olive oils to help them dis­cern the dif­fer­ences between the regions they rep­re­sent,” Petrini added.

At the table, Al Piglio cus­tomers find a bot­tle of the far­m’s extra vir­gin olive oil to use as they wish. ​“I learned this in Spain, where high-pro­file restau­rants always present their cus­tomers with a bot­tle of high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil ready to use,” Petrini said.

For Al Piglio, this year’s NYIOOC award caps off a suc­cess­ful sea­son. ​“I must say, this cam­paign was prob­a­bly a bit bet­ter for us than most in the region,” Petrini said. ​“In our case, the last sea­son was bet­ter than the one before.”

According to Petrini, cli­mate change poses one of the most sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges for high-qual­ity olive oil pro­duc­ers in the long term.

“We can’t reverse cer­tain dynam­ics, but we can try to adapt and mit­i­gate the impact, find­ing the best solu­tions to con­tinue improv­ing our agri­cul­tural prac­tices,” she said.

This is also why Al Piglio was founded with sus­tain­abil­ity in mind. ​“Thanks to my back­ground in the energy sec­tor, adopt­ing a pho­to­voltaic energy pro­duc­tion infra­struc­ture that cov­ers all our needs came nat­u­rally,” Petrini said, not­ing other sus­tain­able choices, includ­ing not using any plas­tic.

“Beyond cli­mate change, a major chal­lenge for this region, and prob­a­bly for all of Italy, is to carve out a true iden­tity in the mar­ket,” Petrini said. ​“This coun­try’s bio­di­ver­sity is unpar­al­leled, espe­cially when it comes to olives.”

“The diver­sity, qual­ity and unique­ness of the prod­ucts we can offer in Italy are unmatched by any other coun­try,” she con­cluded. ​“We should be more aware of this and value it at lev­els pre­vi­ously reserved only for wine.”