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)

Jono Nussbaum
September 25, 2021 In Interviews

ENDANGERED PIECES A conversation with Jono Nussbaum

Jono grew up in London but has always been a keen observer of the natural world: “I started drawing animals and insects when I was young and basically never stopped; the complexity of nature continues to challenge and inspire me.”

After studying Art and Design at Chelsea School of Art and Kingston University he moved to rural Italy in 2003.

 

Like us, you are blessed to live in a stunning part of the world. What inspiration does Monte Amiata bring to your work?

Yes, we are indeed blessed to live here, after 19 years I still feel that my local landscape is a bit of a fairy tale. There is an abundance of nature around me, woodland, macchia, olive groves, rivers and mountain; combined with four very distinct seasons it makes for very diverse variety of life.
My curiosity in nature is undoubtedly the basis for my inspiration and the environment of Monte Amiata makes it easy to maintain a connection and at the very least, appreciate the changing cycles of the natural world. One can almost tell the time by the daily comings and going’s of the animals and birds, and predict the arrival of the annual migratory birds; swallows, swifts, hoopoes; the first songs of the crickets, and the nightingales who fill the valley to play their jazz all night long into summer; all of these occurrences and many more sharpen my senses and add to their creative influence.

 

You’ve trained as an artist, but you also make fabulous furniture. Do you feel more artigiano o artista?

I did study art and illustration, but I got my degree in industrial and furniture design.  I have always considered myself as an artist.  My joinery skills grew alongside this, were self taught, fairly unconventional and came as a necessity of my desire to make what I wanted rather than farm out designs for others to manufacture.  I enjoy metalwork and am happy to try most any discipline to get the results that I want. It gives me great satisfaction to be able to make almost anything that I can imagine.  So in answer to the question, I consider myself as an artist first and foremost, and I became an artigiano along the way.

 

The body of your work, entitled Endangered Pieces must be hugely influenced by the climate around you.  How would you describe what you are transmitting to those who don’t know your work?

Although I live in the presence of an abundance of nature it has not escaped my attention that the numbers and variety of animal populations have decreased in the time that I have been living here. Around the world this is happening everywhere to a greater or lesser degree without exception and we are all now painfully aware of the impact that human activity will have on our future.
Having grown up in a big city, London, I understand the distance that the majority of people keep from the natural world. I’m not talking about Tigers and polar bears or cuddly mammals. What I want to connect is the relevance of EVERY living thing to EVERYTHING living. Yes, mosquitos bite, or at least the females do, but the mosquito population provides sustenance for bats, birds and other insects and are a crucial link in the web, without them things fall apart. I choose mosquitoes as an example because no one likes them, yet they must be appreciated like anything else. Endangered Pieces is describing the beauty of this without discrimination in a language that is gentle and familiar, art.

 

How would you describe your relationship with locally sourced materials?

The main material I use for my work is wood. Fortunately Monte Amiata is heavily forested and has progressively become more organised and environmentally aware about the proper management of its timber production. There is a great variety of local wood, cherry ,oak, chestnut, ash, cedar to name a few. I look for wood that has ‘character’. Twists and bends, knots and splits. The pieces I make are as much dictated by the form of the piece of wood as by my drawings. It sometimes makes it much easier to find. I like the bits that conventional carpenters disregard.

I do have a preferred timber: Walnut. It might be coincidence that my surname means walnut tree, but I am naturally attracted to the dark swirling grain of walnut wood that can be coloured from dark purple and deep chocolate to pale brown and that I find so sympathetic to work with it’s strength, stability and flexibility.

 

What is your first memory of olive oil?

Olive oil is the taste of Tuscany, the essence of life here, I can smell it as I think about it. I followed my sister here to Tuscany before she made wine, and first came when I was 18. To discover fresh pressed new oil was a revelation, unheard of in the UK at the time. A piece of unsalted crusty bread, scarpetta, (little shoe), mopping up a saucer of fresh oil…….. if you haven’t, do!!

 

Can you recommend a great place to eat on Monte Amiata?

Just up the Zancona river valley from me, on the other side below Monticello Amiata is an agriturismo, La Pianore. Owned and run by a Neapolitan family who have been there longer than me, they have this year opened a small pizzeria on select days of the week. When asked by the chef and friend Marcello, “Jono, why do you look so sad?” My reply was, “Now that I’ve tasted your pizzas, where do I go from here?”

He makes truly exceptional pizzas, unconventional recipes, mozzarella soaked in Lemon and herbs, oils and sauces with components from obscure southern producers, vegetables grown from their own spring fed organic gardens. I repeat, Truly Exceptional….and I really do like good food.

 

Jono’s extremely beautiful work is available to view and purchase via his website. www.jononussbaum.com