Real Taste of Tuscany by Communicart.it
CHOOSE YOUR MAP, GUIDE YOUR LIFE
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A Great Reason for Every Season. Florence & Tuscany
Real Taste of Tuscany by Communicart.it
CHOOSE YOUR MAP, GUIDE YOUR LIFE
communicart.it
OLIO E OLIO DI OLIVA
Olives and Olive-Oil
The word derives from Latin ‘oleum‘ which in turn comes from the Greek εlaion (elaion which means
oil - εlaia, olive). The olive tree is a typical element of Tuscan landscape. On Tuscan hills, covered with
olive trees, many different olive trees can be found, which will give a heterogeneous product.
Oil is one of the few product, which is made only from the fruit, without anything added to it.
For this reason, different olive varieties (cultivars) will give a heterogeneous product.
The most common olive varieties in Tuscany are Frantoio, Moraiolo, Leccino, Pendolino.
How Olive Oil is Made
The picking of the olives by hand is still the most used method:small rakes made of plastic, ladders and nets era used in order to separate the fruits from the tree. In the last few years machines have appeared on the market (vibrating machines), which help to harvest more quickly without damaging the fruit.
The olives are then the stored for a short period and then brought to the oil mill in perforated baskets, for the air to pass through, in order to prevent them from getting rotten.
Before the pressing the olives are washed with water; then they are crushed, in order to obtain a homogeneous paste; this can be made with grindstones, hammers or disks. The paste undergoes a process of continuous stirring, in order to let the small drops of oil unite form bigger drops, to make the extraction of the oil easier. This stage of the pressing is called gramolatura (kneading) and usually lasts from thirty to forty minutes.
The characteristic of the oil is that it is one of the few alimentary products, whose quality depends on the freshness of the olives, on their ripening stage and on the technological operations made to obtain nutritional aspects.
