Mendozan Producer Zuccardi Champions Local Arauco Variety on World Stage

The Zuccardi fam­ily is on a mis­sion to pro­mote Argentina’s native Arauco vari­ety at home and abroad.

The third-gen­er­a­tion wine­mak­ers began pro­duc­ing olive oil 20 years ago at the foot of the Andes Mountains in the Maipú depart­ment of the province of Mendoza and have already become a ref­er­ence point for the region.

“We chose to start pro­duc­ing oils from this vari­ety 20 years ago because of its very high-qual­ity poten­tial,” said Miguel Zuccardi, who runs the company’s olive oil oper­a­tions.

“Although it is a vari­ety mainly intended for the pro­duc­tion of table olives, we chose it from the begin­ning of our project,” he added. ​“Not every­one knows the his­tory of this vari­ety, which was intro­duced in South America around 1550 and is cur­rently not present in the Mediterranean basin, its area of​ori­gin.”

The Arauco mono­va­ri­etal is a notice­ably bit­ter oil with notes of fresh green aro­mas and fla­vors.

“It is a vari­ety with late ripen­ing and gen­er­ally has a high level of polyphe­nols,” Zuccardi said. ​“And the aro­matic pro­file always reminds one of tomato, tomato leaf and cut grass.”

However, the olives are milled into a com­par­a­tively chal­leng­ing paste, result­ing in lower oil yields than many com­mer­cial vari­eties.

“It is a vari­ety with a lower indus­trial yield, and there are vari­eties that per­form bet­ter than Arauco,” Zuccardi said. ​“One always has to work with the decanter a lit­tle slower to get a good extrac­tion. It also depends a lot on the humid­ity man­age­ment of the year at the har­vest time.”

“Still, it is a vari­ety that works in the mill,” he added. ​“Keep in mind that if it were a vari­ety that was not agro­nom­i­cally sound, it would not have been main­tained in the region for more than 400 years.”

Over the past 20 years, Familia Zuccardi has planted 60 hectares of Auraco and 260 hectares of Picual, Coratina, Genovesa, Arbosa and Korneiki; all planted tra­di­tion­ally or at medium den­sity.

“We’re not grow­ing at super-inten­sive for now,” Zuccardi con­firmed. ​“We are look­ing for vari­eties that give us a qual­i­ta­tive dif­fer­ence, which inter­ests us most.”

Indeed, that qual­i­ta­tive dif­fer­ence stood out at the 2024 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, where Familia Zuccardi earned a Gold Award for its organic medium Arauco mono­va­ri­etal sub­mit­ted by the pro­lific iden­ti­fier of qual­ity pro­duc­ers Manicaretti Italian Food Importers.

“We are very happy to obtain this recog­ni­tion at NYIOOC,” Zuccardi said. ​“We believe that it is good to bring the oils from our region to this pres­ti­gious com­pe­ti­tion and spread the word about our Arauco vari­ety.”

The award came on the heels of a chal­leng­ing har­vest in Mendoza and across the rest of Argentina.

“The har­vest in Mendoza has been rather low dur­ing 2024,” Zuccardi con­firmed. ​“Mainly due to some frosts in June 2023 [which dam­aged the trees as they were about to blos­som] and the fluc­tu­a­tions in olive pro­duc­tion.”

Familia Zuccardi begins the har­vest early, start­ing with Genovesa by the sec­ond week of March and con­tin­u­ing through the other vari­eties to fin­ish before the start of June.

“Here in Mendoza, which is a high-alti­tude desert, the occur­rence of frost is always a risk, so early har­vests are nec­es­sary,” Zuccardi said.

Looking ahead to 2025, Zuccardi antic­i­pates a pro­duc­tion rebound due to abun­dant flow­er­ing in the olive groves and plenty of snow in the moun­tains dur­ing the win­ter (from June to August in the Southern Hemisphere).

“The spring began with more abun­dant flow­er­ing that we hope will come to fruition,” he said. ​“Luckily, we have had a win­ter with good snow­fall in the Andes, which is deci­sive in water avail­abil­ity and aquifers recharg­ing in a desert region such as Mendoza.”

“On the other hand, the desert con­di­tions of our region allow us to carry out cer­ti­fied organic agri­cul­ture on 100 per­cent of the sur­face that we cul­ti­vate,” Zuccardi added.

Mendoza has an arid cli­mate and receives about 300 mil­li­liters of pre­cip­i­ta­tion annu­ally. However, Zuccardi said he has noticed decreas­ing snow­packs in the Andes over the years, which means less runoff in the sum­mer to recharge the under­ground aquifer upon which the olive groves are located.

This appar­ent impact of cli­mate change and ris­ing elec­tric­ity costs due to recent gov­ern­ment reforms has made irri­ga­tion man­age­ment an essen­tial part of the busi­ness.

“Irrigation man­age­ment is key,” he said. ​“If one looks at the trend of the last 15 years, we have had a decrease in the snow­fall in the moun­tain range. This year, luck­ily, has been a nor­mal year with bet­ter snow­fall.”

Another chal­lenge has been Argentina’s per­sis­tent infla­tion, which has eaten away at con­sumers’ pur­chas­ing power over the years. Still, Zuccardi said Argentina remains the company’s pri­mary mar­ket.

“Our main mar­ket today is Argentina because the dis­tri­b­u­tion of our wine allows us to reach dif­fer­ent mar­ket­ing chan­nels, tak­ing advan­tage of our com­mer­cial struc­ture,” he said. Indeed, restau­rants and cafes across Buenos Aires offer Familia Zuccardi olive oils to clients.

While the local mar­ket remains the company’s main focus, Familia Zuccardi also exports to Brazil, China, Japan and the United States (through Manicaretti).

“Brazil is our main poten­tial mar­ket,” Zuccardi said. ​“It is an impor­tant mar­ket with a lot of cul­tural prox­im­ity.”

“Our mar­ket share in the United States is still very small, but we under­stand that win­ning awards helps pro­mote our oils and sales,” he added.

Familia Zuccardi’s sig­nif­i­cant tourism offer­ings have helped them build a loyal cus­tomer base in Brazil, which has direct flights from São Paulo to Mendoza.

“Mendoza has a wine and gas­tro­nomic tourism indus­try that has grown sig­nif­i­cantly in recent years,” Zuccardi said. ​“We receive many vis­i­tors from Brazil, and this allows many peo­ple who visit Mendoza from Brazil to appre­ci­ate and under­stand the qual­ity of the olive oil here.”

The family’s main tourism offer­ings include three restau­rants, includ­ing its olive oil-cen­tric Pan y Oliva (“Bread and Olive”). Combined, Zuccardi said the com­pany receives 90,000 vis­i­tors annu­ally.

“We also have cook­ing classes, and if you come dur­ing the har­vest sea­son, you can make your own olive oil blend,” he said. ​“There are also pro­grams where you can take a bike tour through the olive grove.”

While many pro­duc­ers in the coun­try have for­saken the domes­tic mar­ket, instead focussing on exports to the United States and Europe, Zuccardi believes there is latent poten­tial in Argentina.

“The mar­ket for qual­ity olive oil is grow­ing,” he said. ​“The extent to which peo­ple under­stand qual­ity, they under­stand that for extra vir­gin olive oil to be good for their health, it also has to be high-qual­ity. It has to be fresh. This is gen­er­at­ing a grow­ing mar­ket.”

“For me, the mar­ket is excit­ing,” Zuccardi con­cluded. ​“Argentina is still small, but con­sumers are inter­ested in learn­ing about olive oil.”