Olive Oil
Green Gold
Sun, stone, dryness, silence and solitude are the five ingredients that, according to Italian folk traditions, create the ideal habitat for the olive tree.
We treasure extra virgin olive oil for its nutritional and salutary virtues.
The extra virgin olive oil is the most digestible of the edible fats, it helps to assimilate vitamins A, D and K. It contains so-called essential acids that slows down the aging process helping vascular and the digestive system.
The silvery green leaves of the olive grove are shining against the cold sky of early November.
“All hands on deck!”, family and friends gathered at Pornanino, are picking the precious fruit by hand, one olive tree after another, two by two, chatting away. When the basket hung transversally on the shoulder becomes too heavy, each one goes to throw the olives in a large basket.
The orange and yellow net carefully lined under and all around the trees are stripped of their lovely, round, silky fruit from green to purple to dark shiny black.
The cybernetic peasant, as Jonathan Futrell, who writes also for the Sunday Times, calls Franco Lombardi, has won the attention of the media. To retire in Chianti and take care of an estate of 39 hectares has been Lia and Franco Lombardi’s choice. The result has been the Pornanino Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
The idea was simple: the tradition in Chianti has always been to cultivate mainly the vineyards.Olive groves and oil are the “small brothers”. Wine is the money maker.
To be the only farmer in the area to produce only olive oil was a challenge and Franco accepted it. He shares his time between the land and the office, rapid contacts and quick decisions must be taken every day.
The numerous guests of the charming agriturist accommodation, two country-villas facing the main-house, often sit around the table at the shade of the large oak tree just outside the kitchen door and sip a glass of wine, a slice of plain grilled Tuscan bread doused with Pornanino Extra Virgin Olive Oil in front of them.
Join them : you won’t be deceived. As a matter of fact you will not be able to do without this Greeen Gold!
From tree to bottle
Leccino, Moraiolo, Pendolino, Frantoio these are the pretty names of some olive varieties grown in Italy.
Leccino, Moraiolo, Pendolino, Frantoio these are the pretty names of some olive varieties grown in Italy.
Each area perfected its own varieties through age-old acclimatization, cross-breeding and experimention on the original Olea Europea Sativa.
The olive tree thrives on hilly ground up to 700 mt, though it can be grown quite satisfactorily at sea level as well.
Harvest time
Olives mature in late autumn through winter, when temperatures drop and trees are nearly at rest.
They are derived from the flowers that managed to survive the endless threats nature throws on the path of the biological cycle, which turn into “drupes”, i.e. fruits having thin skins, moist flesh and a wooden stone protecting the seed.
When the silvery green leaves of the olive groves are shimmering against the cold sky of early November is then the time to harvest at Pornanino.
Picking olives
At Pornanino the method used for harvesting is the traditional manual “brucatura”. Workers equipped with long ladders, pick the olives by hand collecting them in baskets tied to their waist. Only the olives that give easily are picked.
Only small family-run operations such as the Lombardi’s can still afford to pick olives by hand, as it is time-consuming, expensive, and very hard work.
Olive growers always dreamed of a harvesting machine and many techniques were developed over the centuries, including the simple expedient of just waiting for the olives to drop off of their own accord – but that is the best way to make poor oil, since olives don’t all ripen at the same time so that the first batches lay on the ground for weeks, becoming easy prey to rot and parasites.
Beating or shaking?
olive oil: from tree to bottleSince ancient times olives used to be “bacchiate” – men armed with long clubs beat the branches to detach the fruit, which fell in nets or sheets hanging all around and were then collected.
This method is still in use, particularly when the trees are too tall to be reached by ladders. Mechanical shaking is applied to the trunk and sturdier branches, so that only ripe olives fall off while the others remain on the tree.
This system is only used in large estates, where reduced yield is balanced by lower labour costs. The harvesting method is paramount to preserve the quality of the olives and thus of the oil.
Olives should be as healthy as possible, unblemished and still fresh when they reach the oil mill (frantoio), this is before fermentation sets in. To prevent it, the olives are spread out in layers not thicker than about 10 cm and stored in wire-mesh beds to ensure aeration. Beds can be superimposed provided a gap at least 15 cm high is left in between.
But what is that small rounded fruit exactly? Under the smooth exterior (epicarpio) there is a tasty and oily flesh (mesocarpo) enshrining a wooden stone (endocarpo). The flesh is made of water, oil, celluloid, sugars and proteins. Some oil, in the form of tiny drops, is also contained in the stone.
First cold pressing
“First cold pressed” is the official definition for olive oil produced by old fashioned stone wheels and hydraulic press as in the Pornanino olive mill.
Olives are slowly crushed by the stone mill so to emphasize the aroma and the sweetness of the Chianti olives.
The olive paste is subject to increasingly high pressures to extract the oil, by this method it is not necessary to heat the paste so as to maintain all the organoleptic characteristics and reach the highest quality in the production of extra -virgin olive oil.
The First Cold Press process
- The olives, once harvested, are stored for a maximum of 48 hours laid out in layers not thicker than 10cms in a well aired space. (3)
- The age-old stone oil-mill is a wonderful yet simple machine, wich is still in use wherever oil is made in the traditional way. (4)
- Olives are gently and slowly mashed by a stone wheel (12 rpm) to a thick paste (5)
- Which is spread on mats called “fiscoli” (6)
- That are stacked in 1.80 mt high piles (7)
- The stacks are then pressed for about 45 minutes at 450 atmospheres of pressure (8)
- The liquid coming from the press, called “mosto” contains some water other than olive oil that is eliminated by a mechanical separation process (9)
- Here’s our best quality olive oil at last, a nectar so rich, opaque, aromatic and flavoursome that we call it “green gold” (10)
- The “olio nuovo” (new olive oil) is characteristically sharp and pungent, but its strong and distinctive aroma will mellow in time. Since oil should be kept in a dry, well aerated, dark place, it is stored into stainless-steel tanks at a controlled temperature of 15º C – not as picturesque as the earthenware jars of old, but much safer and hygienic
Nectar of the gods
A mysterious link binds man and the olive tree. The Mediterranean soul was thought to dwell in its trunk in ancient times, as if it were a place of the spirit to our civilisation.
Some vegetal patriarchs, veritable living monuments to past and history, survived the passing of time and are still standing. The “witches’ olive tree” of Magliano, near Grosseto, and Saturnia’s “big one” have been giving fruit for at least two thousand years, together with the “sword tree” of Tivoli, Plato’s olive tree in Athens, Ulysses’ in Djerba, the Getsemani grove. The olive tree is a unifying cultural feature shared by the peoples of the Mediterranean basin, an every-day presence to all of us for centuries, all the more valued for its healing properties of body and mind alike.
Adam received the olive tree from God, the goddess Athena was given the whole of Attica in exchange for the gift of a new tree to the gods – this is just a sample of the wealth of legends featuring the divine tree. Our mythical plant probably originated from the highlands comprising Armenia, Pamir and Turkestan, later to spread all over the Mediterranean area. It was the first crop Mediterranean populations actually cultivated, as documented by Palestinian records dating back to 4,000 BC. Stone oil-mills made of a concave slab harbouring the olives and a convex one that turned, crushing them, existed as early as 1,000 BC. The oldest remaining one is in the Greek island of Santorini.
Olive trees are frequently referred to in Greek literature, testifying to their relevance in the poetic mind as well as in every-day life. Oil was actually a staple product in the Greek world, being used as emergency sustenance in time of famine, as a remedy for all sorts of body and mind ailments, as fuel for torches and lamps, as a precious cargo to be exported all over the known world. According to Roman chronicler Columella (I century AD) “olive is first among all plants”. In fact, being a well-organized people, the Romans developed olive cultivation on an “industrial” scale.
Olive growing thus becomes a specialized segment of Mediterranean agriculture, and the most important source of wealth and export together with the vine. Olive oil was of paramount importance in Roman cuisine, and it was also widely believed to give longevity. In the 7th and 8th century AD olive cultivation is abandoned in favour of more readily productive crops, as olive trees take from 7 to 25 years to reach maturity and give fruit. As the ancient saying goes, “don’t plant the olive tree, as it will only benefit your grand-children”.
Although it can last a thousand years, the olive tree is not hardy and a severe frost can destroy in one night the work of years – too high a risk for those troubled times. Around 1100 the new feudal system marks the renaissance of olive cultivation
. Specialized estates crop up in various parts of Italy, particularly in the centre. During the 16th and 17th centuries most of the country is ravaged by wars, with the exception of Sardinia and Tuscany.
The Dukes of Tuscany are enlightened sovereigns and careful administrators, their reforms encouraging vine and olive cultivation and shaping Tuscan landscape as we see it today.
Demand for oil increases dramatically in the 18th century as population grows. In Tuscany this golden period starts with a catastrophe. From 6 to 17 February 1709 a series of severe gales with polar temperatures cause most olive trees to shrivel and die (similar frosts occurred in 1985).
This proves a blessing in disguise, as new trees are planted following the recommendations of the new Economical and Agricultural Academy of the Georgofili, the first of its kind in Europe established in 1753. Acknowledging the olive tree as “the most useful for the State”, the Academy sponsors a competition centered on the olive tree, “decoration, riches and pleasure of the hillside”.
There are no significant modifications in oil making in the following 200 years, although there is a particularly favourable time in the 30s when the Italian government actively promotes olive cultivation all over the country.
As we rediscover the importance of helthy eating as opposed to decades of tinned food, olive oil is once again king on our tables, present dietary research confirming what farmers held from Roman times – if you eat olive oil you’ll live to be a hundred.
Or even longer…
