6th 'Extrascape' Recognizes Outstanding Olive Oil Landscapes

On June 9 and 10, the evoca­tive clois­ter of the Convent of Jesus and Mary in San Martino in Pensilis, in Molise, was the stage of the 6^th edi­tion of Extrascape, the inter­na­tional com­pe­ti­tion for the best ​“olive oil land­scapes.”

The asso­ci­a­tion of pro­duc­ers Molisextra orga­nized the event, and its mem­bers choose not par­tic­i­pate in the com­pe­ti­tion, as impar­tial super­vi­sors for the ses­sions of eval­u­a­tion which cov­ered both the organolep­tic pro­files and the aspect of the lands of ori­gin of extra vir­gin olive oils, which reached Molise from sev­eral coun­tries.

“We cre­ated this com­pe­ti­tion with the desire to reward not only the qual­ity of prod­uct but also its land­scape, intended as the pro­duc­er’s com­mit­ment to safe­guard­ing and thus pro­tect­ing the ter­ri­tory,” said one of the orga­niz­ers, Giorgio Tamaro.

“This aspect becomes an impor­tant expres­sion of qual­ity, as it is now evi­dent that suc­cess­ful extra vir­gin olive oils always came from out­stand­ing land­scapes, both from Italy and from abroad, and this means a well-man­aged and respected envi­ron­ment,” Tamaro added. ​“Over the years, there has never been a dis­so­nance between the win­ning olive oils and the pleas­ant­ness of their land­scapes.”

The results of the con­test were assessed by two boards respec­tively led by the panel leader Vitor Ugo Fratini, and by Achille Ippolito, the coor­di­na­tor of an inter-uni­ver­sity PhD course in land­scape and envi­ron­ment design, man­age­ment and plan­ning at the Sapienza University of Rome.

Thanks to the part­ner­ship between this doc­tor­ate and the mas­ter course in cul­tural land­scape plan­ning and pro­mo­tion of the University of Molise coor­di­nated by Luciano De Bonis, the first morn­ing of the event was devoted to an artic­u­late work­shop on land­scape-related top­ics.

During the after­noon, the sug­ges­tive clois­ter became the set of an ​‘uncon­fer­ence’ attended by experts of the sec­tor who gave speeches on pro­mo­tion, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and aware­ness of pro­duc­ers and con­sumers in Italy and abroad, with a spe­cial focus on the United States.

A round­table on the use of extra vir­gin olive oil in restau­rants gave rise to a lively debate on lat­est trends of food ser­vice.

“It is fun­da­men­tal for the restau­ra­teur to know extra vir­gin olive oil, how to com­mu­ni­cate it and how to give value to it, not only in the kitchen but also in the ser­vice area,” observed the olive oil con­sul­tant and owner of the olive oil shop ​‘Oleonauta’ in Rome, Simona Cognoli.

“In addi­tion to meet­ing the ter­ri­to­r­ial aspect of cui­sine, it is impor­tant to choose the vari­ety accord­ing to the dish, aim­ing at its best expres­sion with the ingre­di­ents and dur­ing cook­ing,” she pointed out.

On the sec­ond day, olive oil DNA was a main topic, being a new fron­tier in tack­ling frauds but also a tool to pro­mote bio­di­ver­sity, as high­lighted by Luciana Baldoni, a senior researcher at the National Research Council’s Institute of Biosciences and Bioresources of Perugia, and by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Carabinieri Command Unit for envi­ron­men­tal, agri-food and forestry pro­tec­tion.

The asso­ci­a­tion Molisextra pre­sented a project, that will be devel­oped in the next months, which aims to restore degraded ecosys­tems of olive groves under organic farm­ing.

The event con­cluded with the award cer­e­mony. ​“This recog­ni­tion has an added value as it enhances an impor­tant aspect of the pro­duc­tion of extra vir­gin olive oil,” said the win­ner of the cat­e­gory ​‘tra­di­tional land­scape, con­ven­tional extra vir­gin olive oil, medium fruity,’ Lidia Antonacci.

“When you open a bot­tle of high-qual­ity extra-vir­gin olive oil you can find in its attrib­utes the con­nect­ing fac­tors with the land to which it belongs,” said the Apulian pro­ducer of Mio padre è un albero, whose deep con­nec­tion with the ter­ri­tory appears in the name of her farm which means ​‘My father is a tree.’

The spe­cial award ​‘Francesco Ortuso,’ which was assigned to the per­son who embod­ied pro­fes­sion­al­ism, trans­parency, humil­ity and deter­mi­na­tion in car­ry­ing out his work of safe­guard­ing, defend­ing and enhanc­ing authen­tic extra vir­gin olive oil, went to a colonel of Carabinieri Command Unit for envi­ron­men­tal, agri-food and forestry pro­tec­tion, Amedeo De Franceschi.

Another spe­cial award went to the for­mer State Forestry Corps, which recently merged into the Carabinieri unit, in the per­son of gen­eral Rosa Patrone, with thanks for the notable tech­ni­cal and human con­tri­bu­tions since the first edi­tion of Extrascape.