Culture Meets Quality at Di Molfetta Pantaleo

A broad cul­tural approach to olive oil pro­duc­tion allowed Apulian pro­duc­ers Di Molfetta Pantaleo to pour eight decades of olive grow­ing expe­ri­ence into one bot­tle of world-class extra vir­gin olive oil.

Their Coratina monocul­ti­var won a Gold Award at the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition for the sec­ond year straight.

“This is a Coratina extra vir­gin olive oil nur­tured by the native land of the Coratina olive trees, healthy as an olive oil can be, as it has a very high polyphe­nol count,” Lucia Di Molfetta, the co-owner of the fam­ily com­pany, told Olive Oil Times.

The rel­a­tively high yield obtained from their grove, the trees’ resilience to com­mon pathogens and their abil­ity to thrive on dif­fer­ent soils are key to Coratina’s pop­u­lar­ity.

Coratina monocul­ti­var extra vir­gin olive oils and blends from around the Northern Hemisphere earned 40 awards at the NYIOOC.

“A long­stand­ing fam­ily olive farm­ing tra­di­tion cou­pled with the pur­suit of qual­ity made the family’s younger gen­er­a­tions effec­tively con­tribute to a new vision,” Di Molfetta said.

The old press used for decades by Di Molfetta’s ances­tors is now a museum. The heavy grinders slowly pulled by ani­mals in 1950 to crush olives have been replaced by state-of-the-art tech­nol­ogy in a mod­ern mill.

“The museum allows us to show our vis­i­tors where it all started and how it used to work,” Di Molfetta said. ​“It is an evoca­tive space which is also used for events, as we rou­tinely have local school pupils come to explore the her­itage of our region.”

Both young stu­dents and oleo­tourists can explore the mill’s his­tory and par­tic­i­pate in olive milling oper­a­tions dur­ing the har­vest sea­son.

“Children are the con­sumers of the future,” Di Molfetta said. ​“Given the rush of their parent’s lives, many of them start believ­ing that food comes from super­mar­kets. Instead, they can learn that food comes from hard work, pas­sion and expe­ri­ence.”

“We have sev­eral activ­i­ties; among them, we devel­oped the tast­ings,” Di Molfetta said, hint­ing at the bruschet­te­ria launched by the fam­ily, an in-mill restau­rant named for bruschetta, an Italian spe­cialty made with sliced toasted bread eaten with olive oil and a gar­lic clove.

The restau­rant allows its clients to taste Di Molfetta’s extra vir­gin olive oils with dozens of dif­fer­ent types of bruschet­tas and fully immerse them­selves in Apulian cui­sine. They can also taste an olive beer pro­duced by Di Molfetta’s local part­ner with olive leaves.

In the restau­rant, the fam­ily also orga­nizes Apulian cui­sine courses for school pupils and tourists, allow­ing them to explore the many olive oil uses.

Given its mis­sion to spread olive oil cul­ture, Di Molfetta’s experts also orga­nize train­ing days for olive grow­ers focused on spe­cific tasks, such as using organic fer­til­iz­ers and cor­rect approaches to prun­ing.

“We con­sider this very rel­e­vant for the whole region, for exam­ple, for learn­ing sus­tain­able prac­tices,” Di Molfetta said. ​“The inverted poly­conic vase is taught in the prun­ing classes.”

A deep under­stand­ing of the olive tree and the deploy­ment of good agri­cul­tural prac­tices are con­sid­ered essen­tial by the fam­ily for the well-being of the trees and olive oil qual­ity.

While Coratina trees com­prise a rel­e­vant por­tion of the 30 hectares of fam­ily olive orchards, Di Molfetta also grows Peranzana and Ogliarola trees, native cul­ti­vars of Puglia. The fam­ily crafts monocul­ti­var extra vir­gin olive oil from each olive vari­ety and blends them to pro­duce del­i­cate and intense prod­ucts.

Last year’s har­vest in Puglia chal­lenged many expe­ri­enced grow­ers. Di Molfetta’s olive trees were affected by the months of above-aver­age tem­per­a­tures expe­ri­enced across the region.

On top of that, it was an ​‘off-year’ in her olive trees’ nat­ural alter­nate fruit cycle, result­ing in a lower yield. ​“When you grow olives, you have to work with what nature gives you,” Di Molfetta said.

“Our olive orchards are tra­di­tional, and all irri­gated,” she added. ​“Thanks to the extreme care we apply through­out the year, the organic fer­til­iz­ers we deploy and cor­rect prun­ing tech­niques, we could choose the best olives and still pro­duce high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil.”

However, the con­di­tions for the next crop year are already bet­ter than those of the pre­vi­ous one. ​“It is cool, and it has been rain­ing for four days now,” Di Molfetta said. ​“This month last year, tem­per­a­tures rose to 40 ºC.”

The local tem­per­a­tures reported through­out 2022 were above aver­age, with record highs dur­ing sum­mer­time.

While it is still too early to pre­dict how the new sea­son will unfold, the con­di­tions have been good. ​“These days, we are expe­ri­enc­ing an extra­or­di­nar­ily beau­ti­ful olive flow­er­ing in very good cli­mate con­di­tions,” Di Molfetta said. ​“Rain is good for the olive trees at this moment.”

“Our hope now is that tem­per­a­tures do not sky­rocket like last year,” she added. ​“We hope it won’t go from abun­dant pre­cip­i­ta­tion to extreme heat.”

“The biggest chal­lenge for olive pro­duc­ers remains the uncer­tainty of the weather,” Di Molfetta con­tin­ued. ​“Through the years, we have seen cli­mate change; the per­cep­tion of it, it is absolutely vivid. Due to the extreme weather events that have been increas­ing sig­nif­i­cantly in recent years, this is some­thing that we often talk about in our region.”

The chang­ing cli­mate is a sig­nif­i­cant cause of ten­sions in the inter­na­tional mar­kets. ​“And on olive oil prices,” Di Molfetta added. ​“What we are see­ing in Spain, where pro­duc­ers are very wor­ried because of the lack of rain­fall, is that extra vir­gin olive oil prices in Spain are align­ing with the tra­di­tion­ally higher Italian extra vir­gin olive oil prices.”

In such a chal­leng­ing moment for olive farm­ing, these price increases might entice con­sumers with a new approach to qual­ity olive oils.

“For high-qual­ity pro­duc­ers, what is hap­pen­ing, in the end, might also have some good out­comes,” Di Molfetta said. ​“Such prices might finally end the bad habit of offer­ing exces­sively dis­counted prices, which have been rou­tinely applied by large retail­ers on olive oil on sale. Maybe con­sumers will start con­sid­er­ing olive oils dif­fer­ently when they will not find it as a spe­cial offer at €2 a bot­tle.”

“The first step of giv­ing value to qual­ity, though, remains to spread olive oil cul­ture so that con­sumers learn to iden­tify what a qual­ity olive oil is,” she added.

This cul­tural work has also ben­e­fited inter­na­tional sales. ​“Clients from abroad once used to look for Italian-cer­ti­fied extra vir­gin olive oils, such as Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) prod­ucts,” Di Molfetta said. ​“Now they see that we pro­mote our Apulian ori­gin, the Apulian cul­ture and the Apulian food prod­ucts; they do not need any­thing else.”