Enjoying the Olive Harvest with Dear Friends!
This oil was pressed the day before we harvested olives at our friend’s farm. This “frantoio” or olive oil mill services many of the local producers. The owner was kind enough to give us a couple of bottles. This is organic, unfiltered, 100% moraiolo olive oil. There’s nothing like eating this oil when it’s “new.”
Italy is renowned for its delicious, high-quality olive oils. Olive oil is one of the most healthful food products in the world and the oils produced in Umbria are considered some of the best due to their high levels of polyphenols. These give the oils a spicy, acerbic flavor. It’s perfect for the cuisine in this region. Meats are often served flavored only with salt and drizzled with a generous amount of olive oil.
Our dear friend, Leonardo Bianchini, invited us to join him and his family to harvest olives at their Agritourismo in Treggio which is named il Moraiolo. They have a beautiful property that overlooks the valley and they have a over 1000 olive trees.
A Bird's-Eye View from Agratourismo Il Moraiolo
A Lot of Work (with a little help!)
That fancy device I’m using is basically a mechanical hand that you insert into the branches of the tree. The rods on the head-piece rotate at high speed knocking the olives off the tree. In the past the olives were harvested by hand which was incredibly tough work.
You can see in the photos that the olives fall onto nets placed under the tree. They are then poured into containers which Leonardo brings to the olive oil mill. They are weighed, cleaned and pressed.
Leonardo’s wife, Alessandra, told us that the family usually harvests some of the trees for a few days and then they have a professional crew come in to finish the job. Consider, we helped them for one day and harvested about 400 lbs of olives. The crew will be there for about a week! That’s a lot of oil!!
Umbrian Olive Cultivars
There are over 400 olive cultivars in Italy and they constitute a wide range of flavors, aromas and textures. Often, oil at the grocery store (especially outside of Italy) is a blend of different cultivars. There are, of course, oils made from a single olive type. The olives on Leonardo’s land are 100%, organic Moraiolo and they produce an incredibly flavorful oil.
Here’s a rundown on the main Umbrian cultivars:
LECCINO (Toscana/Umbria/Lazio): Delicate, captivating flavor that boasts of freshly cut grass, almond, and lightly spicy ending
MORAIOLO (Umbria/Toscana): Rich in polyphenols, which contribute to its bitterness and spiciness; strong herbaceous flavor with notes of green almond, artichoke, and tomatoes, and an intense, fruity, and floral aroma
FRANTOIO (Tuscany/Umbria/Lazio): Boasts intense notes intense artichoke leaf, freshly cut grass, green almonds with a lovely bitter harmony and a peppery persistent aftertaste
I just happen to have a very good, unfiltered, organic olive oil that I bought last month. It was pressed last October. As you can see, freshly pressed oil is truly a beautiful thing!!!!
