Oliva: How Ancient Fables Become Award-Winning Olive Oils

A mod­ern olive mill sits strate­gi­cally between the moun­tains and sea in one of the world’s most famous oil-pro­duc­ing regions in south­east­ern Sicily.

Azienda Agricola Oliva wel­comes vis­i­tors with prickly pear cacti, thou­sands of cen­tury-old olive trees and scores of col­or­ful lemon trees.

For years now, the Oliva family’s extra vir­gin olive oil has won cov­eted qual­ity awards, includ­ing a Gold Award at the 2021 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

The small-scale, high-end pro­ducer boasts more than 5,000 olive trees, and their olive oils have been fea­tured in local restau­rants for decades. The fam­ily started its olive oil adven­ture in 1957, and the founders built strong roots within the local com­mu­nity.

Oliva means olive in Italian. In Sicily (and else­where in south­ern Italy, too), many com­mon sur­names are con­nected to the tra­di­tional eco­nomic activ­i­ties of the region.

“Our fam­ily sur­name comes from the his­tory of this area, where olive grow­ing has ancient roots,” Francesca Oliva, the company’s owner, told Olive Oil Times. ​“In more recent times, since the 1960s, our olive oil mill trans­formed olives from the whole area and the fam­ily also used to buy olives from grow­ers in adja­cent loca­tions.”

“Given the grow­ing inter­est shown by our inter­na­tional guests and friends from abroad, in 2013, we decided to turn our oper­a­tions into a com­pany focused on our olive trees,” she added. ​“The excel­lence of the prod­uct helped us to reach abroad.”

“Since then, we have slowly added new olive orchards to our land,” Oliva con­tin­ued. ​“We do also plant new orchards. But we do not aim at becom­ing large-scale olive oil pro­duc­ers, as we aim for qual­ity, organic and sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion.”

One of the dri­vers of the Oliva fam­i­ly’s efforts to reach the inter­na­tional mar­ket was the many guests vis­it­ing the mill and tast­ing their extra vir­gin olive oils.

Today oleo­tourism is the focus of recent Italian leg­is­la­tion paving the way to a new form of tourism. The lat­est effort to pro­mote tra­di­tional olive oil pro­duc­tion comes on the heels of the suc­cess of eno­tourism, which has com­bined tourism and wine pro­duc­tion in the last cou­ple of decades.

“We have been greet­ing our vis­i­tors for many years before the law,” Oliva said. ​“When they arrive, we show them around, let them dis­cover the extra vir­gin olive oil’s best qual­i­ties, have them taste our prod­ucts and get to share with them the pas­sion and the work behind such excel­lency.”

The Oliva fam­i­ly’s main olive vari­eties include the local Tonda Iblea, both for olive oil and table olive pro­duc­tion. Strong and tall, Tonda Iblea trees thrive in the island’s gen­tle hills and are also known for their large dru­pes.

From these dru­pes, the Oliva fam­ily pro­duces Favola, ​“fable” in English, an award-win­ning organic extra vir­gin olive oil.

“Our olive oil rep­re­sents the roots of agri­cul­tural Sicily, of a time, not too far gone in which farm­ers and work­ers shared their days in the farm, gath­er­ing at night around the same table to nar­rate to each other the cunti, the tra­di­tional tales told to enter­tain guests,” Oliva said.

“Favola is a small piece of our his­tory,” she added. ​“It is also the tale of our food cul­ture, a prod­uct har­vested and bot­tled by hand.”

Favola is a robust mono­va­ri­etal with tast­ing sen­sa­tions of arti­choke, red chili pep­per, tomato and herbs.

“We do not use chem­i­cal treat­ments on our olive trees,” Oliva said. ​“We care­fully fol­low every step of ripen­ing and hand-har­vest at the best pos­si­ble moment of the sea­son. Usually, it would be an early har­vest to con­firm Favola’s unique qual­i­ties year after year.”

Within 12 hours of the har­vest, the olives reach the highly tech­no­log­i­cal fam­ily mill and are trans­formed into extra vir­gin olive oil.

“We are proud to live in a friendly land full of col­ors and cul­ture, and that is what our Favola is about,” Oliva said. ​“Tonda Iblea is the most valu­able cul­ti­var of the Syracuse area. Its char­ac­ter­is­tics pro­duce the green tomato leaf fruity tast­ing sen­sa­tion that makes it rec­og­niz­able and often unfor­get­table.”

The Oliva fam­ily also grows Cerasuola olives, the trees of which can eas­ily be spot­ted across west­ern Sicily. Using this other local vari­ety, the Oliva fam­ily also pro­duces the Sicilian mono­va­ri­etal PGI (Protected Geographical Indication).

Among the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the Cerasuola vari­ety, it is resilient to drought and a hot­ter cli­mate.

“Yes, our orchards are actu­ally very close to the mete­o­ro­log­i­cal sta­tion, which reported the high­est tem­per­a­ture on record last year,” Oliva said.

In July 2021, heat­waves in south­ern Italy pro­voked unheard-of tem­per­a­tures, includ­ing the 48.8 ºC recorded in Sicily, a record-high for con­ti­nen­tal Europe.

This heat­wave was fol­lowed by exces­sive rain­fall, which stretched into the first weeks of the olive har­vest­ing sea­son.

“Still, the cur­rent season’s har­vest is mod­est in terms of quan­tity, but the qual­ity has increased over the most recent years,” Oliva said.

The Oliva fam­ily also uses Cerasuola olives in their Favola blend, along with the Sicilian Nocellara Etnea vari­ety.

“Nocellara Etnea usu­ally has got a slight fruiti­ness, bit­ter­ness and pun­gency of light or medium inten­sity,” Oliva said. ​“It can remind notes of almond and, some­times, ripe fruit.”

The fam­ily also pro­duces a mono­va­ri­etal Moresca extra vir­gin olive oil, touted for its high polyphe­nol con­tent. The vari­ety is also widely appre­ci­ated by farm­ers for its mostly con­sis­tent yields, which are only par­tially affected by olive trees’ typ­i­cal alter­nate bear­ing pat­tern.

Compared to the Tonda Iblea mono­va­ri­etal, Moresca olives pro­duce a less pro­nounced, fruity olive oil, with just a few bit­ter­ness and piquant notes and scents of almond and green apple.

Among the Oliva family’s goals is to pro­vide their cus­tomers with a bet­ter under­stand­ing of extra vir­gin olive oil and its pric­ing. Olive argued that this edu­ca­tion sim­ply begins with tast­ing the prod­uct.

“Producers should get together to give the right value to their prod­ucts,” Oliva said. ​“They could approach the con­sumers in novel ways, make their cus­tomers taste the dif­fer­ent cul­ti­vars and under­stand their char­ac­ter­is­tics.”

“It does not require a pro­fes­sion­ally edu­cated palate to appre­ci­ate the fla­vor of an excel­lent extra vir­gin olive oil when com­pared to lower qual­ity olive oils,” she added. ​“Excellent extra vir­gin olive oil can­not be sold at an unsus­tain­able price.”

The fam­ily also invests in intel­li­gent pack­ag­ing for their extra vir­gin olive oils, with its bot­tles tra­di­tion­ally shipped in recy­clable and reusable light-pro­tected con­tain­ers.

“When we talk about sell­ing extra vir­gin olive oils to house­holds, large tin cans should be out­lawed,” she said. ​“Families buy that tin. Then they have to pour it in other con­tain­ers, which puts qual­ity and resilience in dan­ger.”

“Those tins also retain part of the prod­ucts, which is unac­cept­able given the qual­ity,” she added. ​“More should be done to give value to the prod­ucts.”

Apart from tra­di­tional bot­tles, the fam­ily has also invested in other for­mats, such as 25-mil­li­liter con­tain­ers, often sold to restau­rants. This pack­ag­ing method also pro­tects the prod­uct while allow­ing inter­ested cus­tomers to taste the dif­fer­ent vari­eties’ fla­vors.

“We believe that olive farm­ing can be a valu­able dri­ver for change while also sup­port­ing other busi­nesses,” Oliva con­cluded. ​“It can pro­duce new value for tourism and increase inter­est in devel­op­ing a new green econ­omy.”