LOCATION AND CLIMATE

 

As you might expect, olives grown in cooler areas where there is more moisture (rainfall and dew) exhibit leaner, more restrained characteristics.  This doesn’t however mean that great oil can now be made in Iceland – you need a minimum amount of sunshine to make your Extra Virgin Olive Oil taste remarkable, similarly to tomatoes or stone fruit.

Olive trees are sensitive to winter freeze (the Casaliva cultivar is more resistant to cold, hence being grown in the Garda region).  It is also easier to farm organically where the climate is more stable and less chemical sprays are required to keep the trees healthy.

OLIVE MATURITY

 

Here’s the thing – all olives are green.  When they become fully mature, they turn black.
Olive maturity at the time of harvest is a major factor in flavour and quality: olives harvested earlier (green olives) feature more bitter, grassy characteristics, with lower yields and with the highest anti-oxidant content.  The oil is a much more intense green colour and has a longer shelf-life.  In terms of production, milling can take longer with green olives (a longer malaxation - the action of slowly churning milled olives to release droplets of oil - is needed and can be more complicated) but the results are far superior!  Don’t choose olive oil from over mature fruit: it lacks all the potential goodness and flavour.

ATTENTION TO DETAIL IN GROVE AND MILL

 

People who care passionately about what they make and follow it personally every day have the capacity to create products with far higher quality, with integrity, and that taste of where they come from.  They are also able to do this by caring for the environment they inhabit.

FRANTOIO DI RIVA BOX

This box contains 6 bottles of extra virgin olive oil made exclusively by Frantoio di Riva from groves on the banks of lake Garda.

Frantoio di Riva, 46°PARALLELO green label x 3 bottles (50cl)
Frantoio di Riva, 46°PARALLELO organic white label x 1 bottle (50cl)
Frantoio di Riva, 46°PARALLELO blue label x 1 bottle (50cl)
Frantoio di Riva, ULIVA Garda Trentino DOP x 1 bottle (50cl)

November 26, 2022

New to Frantoi: Frantoio Ciccolella

Bowled over by the quality of these incredible oils, we have added them to our portfolio in Puglia, not out of need, but out of desire. Puglia is of course Italy’s most prolific olive oil region and because of this, we taste extensively and regularly.  This always gives us the chance to discover something new and we have come close in the past to selecting new names to join the ranks but never crossed the line.READ MORE

October 29, 2021

REPLENISH

As the autumn really sets in we only have to look to nature to know that it’s time to replenish our reserves for the winter ahead.  The surrounding trees and bushes are offering us berries and nuts loaded with the antioxidants and nutrients that we need.  We set aside ingredients to sustain us through the colder months either by drying or preserving.  Refilling, restoring, reserving all in anticipation of cold weather ahead when there is less access to fresh produce.READ MORE

Mille from Frantoi Cutrera
August 29, 2020

The Magic of Mille

The Cutrera family, based in the South East of Sicily produce sublime, decisive, elegant Extra Virgin Olive Oils from indigenous cultivars that truly taste of their origin.  We have selected four of these that we feel are exceptional for different reasons and you can find out more about them on our dedicated section of our website: http://www.frantoi.org/cutrera/

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Frantoi - Oils
June 18, 2020

Extra Virgin vs other Olive Oil

The market for Olive Oil is vast – in Italy domestic demand outstrips supply and so you can imagine how much oil needs to be sourced from outside to fulfill the volume demands of large companies who supply supermarkets around the globe. You can find an incredibly broad range of quality in the bottle therefore.

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