7th 'Extrascape' Honors the Landscapes Behind the Brands

Extrascape, an inter­na­tional com­pe­ti­tion for extra vir­gin olive oils and the land­scapes from which they came, orga­nized by the asso­ci­a­tion of pro­duc­ers Molisextra, moved from San Martino in Pensilis, in Molise, to Parma, in Emilia-Romagna for its sev­enth edi­tion.

From 7 to 11 May, the inter­na­tional food exhi­bi­tion Cibus hosted a ses­sion of the con­test.

For the dura­tion of the exhi­bi­tion, a tast­ing area was set up and the images of the land­scapes which took part in the com­pe­ti­tion were dis­played dur­ing a round table on the theme ​‘EVOO and olive land­scapes: Uses and abuses.’

“The choice we made this year to be present at the Cibus inter­na­tional food fair was dic­tated by the desire to find new stake­hold­ers, who share the mis­sion of mak­ing con­sumers aware of the qual­ity of the oils they use,” said the pres­i­dent of Molisextra and orga­nizer of Extrascape, Francesco Travaglini.

“We talked to peo­ple like food buy­ers and inter­me­di­aries who are not yet involved in the extra vir­gin olive oil sec­tor, show­ing them what qual­ity is through the link with the ter­ri­tory, a theme which is becom­ing increas­ingly impor­tant in the food indus­try.”

The sec­ond part of the event will move back to Molise, the birth­place of the con­test, to high­light the impor­tance of the con­nec­tion with the ter­ri­tory. On that occa­sion the spe­cial Extrascape prize ​‘Francesco Ortuso,’ which goes to the per­son who excelled in pro­tect­ing authen­tic food and extra vir­gin olive oil in par­tic­u­lar, will be awarded to Anna Scafuri, a jour­nal­ist for the Italian tate tele­vi­sion Rai, ​“for her always care­ful work in pro­vid­ing cor­rect infor­ma­tion, aimed at enhanc­ing the qual­ity and authen­tic­ity of ​‘Made in Italy’ in gen­eral and in par­tic­u­lar of the extra vir­gin olive oil,” accord­ing to the orga­niz­ers.

Meanwhile, the best olive oils in the con­text of their olive grow­ing ter­ri­to­ries were revealed in Parma, after the joint eval­u­a­tions con­ducted by two pan­els of tasters and land­scape experts.

A pro­fes­sor of archi­tec­tural com­po­si­tion and direc­tor of a master’s degree course in land­scape design, Achille Ippolito led the com­mis­sion who eval­u­ated the ori­gins of the prod­ucts. ​“Most of the olive groves we eval­u­ated were very inter­est­ing,” he noted. ​“We appre­ci­ated some Spanish orchards and espe­cially the award-win­ning Apulian com­pany (whose farm) fits into the land­scape with great respect.”

The win­ners among thirty par­tic­i­pants from around Europe were announced on 8 May in the FoodCourt area of the Molise’s agency for the agri­cul­tural, rural and fish­eries devel­op­ment Arsap at Cibus.

Four com­pa­nies iden­ti­fied by a tra­di­tional land­scape were selected by the pan­els of experts: Mio Padre è un Albero in San Severo (Foggia, Puglia) for the light fruity cat­e­gory; Olivarera La Purisima, in Priego de Córdoba (Andalucìa, Spain) for the medium fruity cat­e­gory; L’Olivario Frantoio Oleario, in Castelleone di Suasa (Ancona, Marche) for the intense fruity cat­e­gory; Carmela di Caro, in Trapani (Sicily) for the organic cat­e­gory.

“To con­sume an authen­tic extra vir­gin olive oil means to pro­tect and enhance a piece of land through an eth­i­cal act, since the land­scape pro­tec­tion is one of the prin­ci­ples of the Italian Constitution,” Travaglini pointed out, refer­ring to the Article 9 which reads: ​“The Republic safe­guards nat­ural land­scape and the his­tor­i­cal and artis­tic her­itage of the Nation.”

“We are ready for the next Extrascape, with a greater aware­ness and the desire to involve an increas­ing num­ber of pro­duc­ers in our mis­sion of qual­ity and respect of the ter­ri­tory,” he con­cluded.