A very special Italian olive oil

The most flavourful olive oil in Italy is known to be the olive oil from Tuscany. Our olive oil is not for frying, but a high-quality seaso­ning olive oil that “tastes like Italy”. Indeed, its intense aroma reminds of herbs, earth and sun. There­fore, the home of superior quality Tuscan olive oil is that kind of premium cuisine, which uses natural aromas to exalt, season and refine best raw materials.

Podere Palazzone’s organic extra virgin olive oil is of excel­lent quality. A product in total harmony with nature, in organic quality. Its full name would be: Olio Extra­ver­gine di Oliva Toscano, biolo­gico, prima spremit­ura a freddo, i.e. first cold pressing.

Organic olive oil

Some of our olive trees are more than a hundred years old. But mainly their age is about 40 years. They are of the Pendo­lino, Moraiolo and Frantoio type, which produce parti­cu­larly high-quality, inten­sely aroma­tic fruits. We comple­tely refrain from using chemi­cals in olive culti­va­tion. As a matter of fact, nutri­ent supply to the olive grove’s soil in is provi­ded by mulching organic matter (leaves, cuttings) and horse manure. Given that horses do not chew the cud, their manure is parti­cu­larly rich in undigested plant fibres and there­fore especi­ally precious. The olive grove of our Agritu­rismo is located on a wind-exposed hills­ide. There­fore, a light breeze always blows through our olive trees. Luckily, the olive fruit fly Bactro­cera oleae, a dange­rous pest in olive culti­va­tion, does not like such condi­ti­ons. As a result, we can do comple­tely without chemi­cal pest control.

Vegetative phases of olives

The work in the olive grove starts at the begin­ning of spring with the pruning of the trees. Basically, we shape a fertile, not overloa­ded, healthy and manageable tree crown. Usually, the pruning is done before Easter. From that comes the Italian tradi­tion, to celebrate Palm Sunday with olive branches.

Our olive trees blossom all white in May. After polli­na­tion, mainly done by wind trans­fer of pollen from neigh­bou­ring trees, the fine petals fall off. At that time, the olive grove appears as if after a light snowfall. During the dry and warm summer in Tuscany, the olive trees enjoy a lot of sun and form the oil fruit. Harvest occurs from mid-October. Our olives do not exceed a length of 1.5 cm and their colour changes from light green to dark purple and finally black.

Inside the olive

The olive is a stone fruit that consists of appro­xi­m­ately 75% oily pulp. Inside is the kernel, embedded in the olive pulp. Only a little, hardly soluble olive oil is contai­ned in the kernel. On the other hand, the flesh of the olive is compo­sed of vacuo­les in which the precious oil is stored. A membrane protects them from the surroun­ding vegeta­tion water. Certainly, it is crucial for top quality of olive oil, that this water does not come into contact with the oil itself. Other­wise, an oxida­tion process would be initia­ted, and the olive oil would start becoming rancid. There­fore, it is of paramount importance to leave these vacuo­les intact until the moment of oil pressing. This has major conse­quen­ces for harve­s­t­ing techni­que and harve­s­t­ing time.

Handpicked Italian olive oil, one of the few

In Tuscany, compared to other regions of Italy, we press olive oil quite early. At the Agritu­rismo Podere Palazzone, harvest starts mid-autumn. As a matter of fact, oil does not “mature” in the olive. At that time, the membra­nes are still elastic and intact, which means they can perfectly fulfil their protec­tive function. Above all, however, we pick the olives by hand in order to avoid damaging the vacuo­les through mecha­ni­cal influen­ces (shakers). There are only very few olive oil produ­cers left in Italy, who pick by hand. Obviously, because it is very labour-inten­sive. But at the end of the day, the diffe­rence in quality justi­fies the extra effort.

We collect the harve­s­ted olives in venti­la­ted boxes and within 48 hours, as long as the vacuo­les are still perfectly intact, we take them to the Pomarance oil mill. An olive tree produ­ces about 20–25 kg of olives, from which about 3 liters of oil are obtained.

Extra virgin olive oil cold pressed

Follo­wing tradi­tio­nal Tuscan method, the olives are first washed and crushed in single batches. After­wards, by centri­fu­ga­tion the oil is separa­ted from water, pulp and other compon­ents. The olive oil obtai­ned in this way, gently, cold, purely mecha­ni­cally pressed, is the highest quality part of the oil contai­ned in an olive. In Italy it is called extra vergine, the paramount olive oil quality grade. Podere Palazzone’s olive oil has an extre­mely low acidity of just 0.03% and a peroxide value of only 0.6 meq O₂/kg (milli-equiva­lents of active oxygen per kg of oil — an indica­tor of “ranci­dity”). This corre­sponds to a quality of the very first class. NB: Accor­ding to label­ling regula­ti­ons, for extra virgin olive oil a much higher peroxide value of 20 meq O₂/kg is allowed.

Italian olive oil with distinctive character

The olive oil from Podere Palazzone holiday home is charac­te­ri­zed by its strong charac­ter, the green colour with yellow sheen and its fruity taste. It has a full olive aroma, with notes of artichoke, auber­gine and pepper, and a delicious fruity bouquet. There­fore, our olive oil goes perfectly with the flavours of Mediter­ra­nean cuisine. Given the dedica­tion and love we put in produ­cing our olive oil, it is always an immense pleasure, on a cool autumn evening at the fireplace, remem­be­ring the bygone summer while enjoy­ing a bruschetta, sprink­led with a few drops of freshly pressed olive oil. You are welcome to share this emotion at our Agriturismo.

-   All about olive oil -

Harvesting techniques to be banned

Still in the 1970s, olives were collec­ted from the soil like fallen fruit. The overripe olives fell from the tree, were picked up from the ground, stored in the attic and pressed when needed. Nowadays, in Italy, this techni­que is only used in steep coastal regions. Instead, in the huge olive planta­ti­ons in other areas, harvest is done with machine shakers. However, by their powerful beat the vacuo­les break up, causing the ranci­dity descri­bed above. Of course, at the Podere Palazzone holiday home, we do not use shakers. And, obviously, such scanda­lous proce­du­res as the harvest with big aspira­tors, usually done at night, as practi­ced in other count­ries, are comple­tely out of the question. Because they kill hundreds of thousands of migra­tory birds from northern Europe, which have found a resting place in the olive trees at night. Indeed, blinded by large spotlights, they can no longer escape and end up in the huge suction harvesters.

Best olive oil is clear

Contrary to popular belief, the best olive oil is not turbid. As a matter of fact, turbi­dity is caused by fruit residues that have not been separa­ted from the oil. This is a major cause for subse­quent oxida­tion of the oil. Oxidized oil is spoiled oil, with the typical rancid taste. It is not without purpose, that nature has added ingre­di­ents such as water, olive sugar and endoge­nous olive enzymes to the olive fruit. In fact, these substances, which make the turbi­dity are there to stimu­late the decay of the fruit so that the seed can germi­nate once fallen on the ground.

Quality grades of olive oil

In addition to the extra vergin olive oil grade of Podere Palazzone’s olive oil, there are further inferior quality grades. Cold-pressed olive oil with taste defects and an acidity of up to 2% falls into the category “virgin olive oil”. If a cold-pressed olive oil has even greater defici­en­cies, it is mixed with refined olive oil in an indus­trial process. The latter one is obtai­ned through pressing with heat and chemi­cal solvents. Such a process enables a further oil yield and leaves undesi­ra­ble chemi­cal residues in the oil. There­fore, this oil then goes through purifi­ca­tion in an oil refinery. Such a mixture is sold under the name “olive oil”. Finally, further chemi­cal treat­ment of the olive pomace, i.e. the residue from cold or warm pressing, extra­cts the remai­ning, practi­cally taste­l­ess oil rest. Follo­wing a further refining, this results in “olive pomace oil”, which is usually added to inferior batches of virgin olive oil.

Olive oil tasting

If you want to delve deeper into the subject, you are cordi­ally invited to our themed dinner on olive oil. We will explain the culti­va­tion, harve­s­t­ing and proces­sing techni­ques and show you the diffe­ren­ces to other culti­va­tion areas and other quality catego­ries. We will guide you through the olive oil tasting and surprise you with delicious special­ties based on our organic extra virgin olive oil.