Olive Oils From Sardinia Find a Modern Audience

Olive oil from Sardinia is hav­ing a moment.

Several pro­duc­ers from the sec­ond largest island in the Mediterranean took home a hand­ful of awards at this year’s NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

At the same time, restau­rants and importers from around the world are shar­ing Sardinian olive oil with curi­ous con­sumers and agri-tourism to the island’s olive farms has sky­rock­eted.

But the story of olive oil in Sardinia is cen­turies old, mil­len­nia even.

Pasquale Manca, a fourth-gen­er­a­tion olive grower at San Giuliano Alghero, said the pro­duc­tion of olive oil on the island dates back to the sev­enth cen­tury BCE. Various gov­ern­ing groups, from the Romans to the Pisans and the Aragons, over­saw thou­sands of acres of wild olive trees.

In the 16^th cen­tury, the Aragons man­dated that landown­ers plant 10 new olive trees each year, install mills on prop­er­ties with more than 500 olive trees and sent experts from Spain to Sardinia in order to teach the locals how to pro­duce bet­ter olive oil.

However, all that his­tory was largely a secret, kept by res­i­dents of the island and the Italian main­land, Manca said. That is, until now.

“The sales of olive oil were directed pri­mar­ily to the Italian main­land for many years, and only fairly recently the Sardinian pro­duc­ers have started to ship their oils out­side the coun­try,” Manca said.

Manca and San Giuliano won two Gold awards at the 2019 NYIOOC for the San Guiliano Fruttato and San Giuliano L’Orginale. He said even though world­wide acclaim is new, the qual­ity of the island’s olive oil was steeped through­out his­tory.

“Sardinian olive oil is very renowned in Italy for its herbal and arti­choke sen­sa­tions,” Manca said. ​“In the last 20 years, along with Sicily, Sardinia has won most of the com­pe­ti­tions in Italy and abroad for the very high qual­ity of its oils.”

Manca added that Sardinia is one of only five blue zones in the world – an area where peo­ple have been found to live longer – and the fact that its olive oil helps to pro­duce an intact and unpol­luted envi­ron­ment is a con­tribut­ing fac­tor.

Other pro­duc­ers on the island are sim­i­larly proud of Sardinia’s her­itage and excited to share the prod­uct with the world.

Antonello Fois, of Accademia Olearia (whose Riserva del Produttore won Gold at the 2019 NYIOCC), said the old­est olive tree on the company’s farms in Sardinia is 4,000 years old. Despite its estab­lished pro­duc­tion areas, more groves are being cul­ti­vated every year because olive trees flour­ish on the island, Fois said.

“The pro­duc­tion of olive oil in Sardinia is grow­ing in quan­tity and in qual­ity,” he said. ​“Sardinian oil is very fruity and rich in polyphe­nols. For this rea­son, it is very good for your health.”

Accademia Olearia takes spe­cial care to ensure the qual­ity of its olives results in high-qual­ity olive oil. Olives are pressed within 12 hours of being picked in their recently updated facil­i­ties. The olives are processed at pre­cisely 77 degrees Fahrenheit and then fil­tered and stocked in silos at a cool 59 degrees.

Manca also cred­ited the pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties at San Giuliano for the qual­ity of the company’s olive oils. It is one of the biggest pro­duc­ers of organic extra vir­gin olive oil in the coun­try, and a state-of-the-art mill built around them along with a trace­abil­ity sys­tem in place allows Manca and his fel­low pro­duc­ers to ensure qual­ity in every step of the pro­duc­tion process.

Olives are grown in three loca­tions of Sardinia with dif­fer­ent cul­ti­vars in each, accord­ing to Fois. The Bosana cul­ti­var thrives in the north; Neri di Oliena in the east; Tonda di Cagliari in the south; and Semidana in the west. Each has a unique fla­vor pro­file and grow­ing habits, but there is one unique chal­lenge to cul­ti­vat­ing olives on the island: the wind.

“The wind is cer­tainly the main chal­lenge in Sardinia, espe­cially the one that blows from the north­west called mis­tral,” Manca said, refer­ring to a strong, cold wind that blows off the coast of Provence, France, and affects tem­per­a­tures and the shape of olive trees. ​“But besides this pecu­liar­ity… Sardinia offers an excep­tional spot to grow olive trees.”

Due to its unique char­ac­ter­is­tics, oleo­tourism in Sardinia is also tak­ing off. Some groups, such as Tasting Sardinia, offer olive oil-spe­cific tours around the island. Both Manca and Fois said they have expe­ri­enced an uptick of vis­i­tors in recent years.

“Every year we have more and more vis­i­tors who come to visit our pro­duc­tion plant,” Fois said. ​“We are very proud of this as it means we are becom­ing increas­ingly more well known on a national and inter­na­tional level.”

Manca said this boost in tourism, aided by the island’s olive oil acco­lades, is crit­i­cal to the future of Sardinia.

“Sardinia is a big island but with a very low den­sity per square kilo­me­ter in terms of pop­u­la­tion,” he said. ​“Therefore its econ­omy relies on the many tourists that come on vaca­tion to spread the word about the unique­ness of this fan­tas­tic island, both in terms of beauty and of food tra­di­tion.”

Food estab­lish­ments around the world, and recently in the United States, are pro­mot­ing Sardinian olive oil by keep­ing shelf space for it and high­light­ing it on restau­rant menus. So, the only thing left to do is try more Sardinian olive oil or bet­ter yet, visit the island.