`Olio Capitale Hands Baton to Milan Expo - Olive Oil Times
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Olio Capitale Hands Baton to Milan Expo

By Luciana Squadrilli
Mar. 25, 2015 09:49 UTC

The extra vir­gin olive oil event in Trieste recorded another suc­cess despite the dif­fi­cult year. It now passes the baton to the major event in Milan, where the com­pe­ti­tion’s prizes will be awarded

Senator Colomba Mongiello[/callout]

The 9th edi­tion of Olio Capitale closed on the 10 March 2015 with sat­is­fy­ing fig­ures, the event orga­niz­ers said.

12,000 peo­ple vis­ited Trieste’s Stazione Marittima — the beau­ti­ful loca­tion on the city’s har­bour — dur­ing the three days of the exhi­bi­tion. There were 3,000 par­tic­i­pants at the pres­ti­gious Scuola di Cucina and over 250 extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duc­ers hail­ing from Spain, Greece, and Croatia and every region of Italy, con­tin­u­ing the trend of strong growth for Italy’s only fair ded­i­cated to extra vir­gin olive oils.

This year, the national Città dell’Olio asso­ci­a­tion played an impor­tant role in the fair’s suc­cess bring­ing to Trieste not only the oils from 362 towns and 18 regions it rep­re­sents, but many other typ­i­cal prod­ucts and recipes show­cas­ing the incred­i­ble food her­itage of Italy, from the intensely scented cit­rus from Sicily to tra­di­tional Matera’s bread.

This was intended as a homage and a cross-ref­er­ence to this year’s biggest event to be held in Italy, the Milan Expo 2015, ded­i­cated to food and healthy nour­ish­ment, which will open its doors on May 1.

“This has truly been an edi­tion to remem­ber for the Città dell’Olio. Very high par­tic­i­pa­tion, a response bear­ing wit­ness to the pride of our Città dell’Olio pro­duc­ers, who despite the ter­ri­ble year, have con­firmed the trust they have in this major inter­na­tional show­case,” said Enrico Lupi, pres­i­dent of the Associazione Nazionale Città dell’Olio. ​“We are very much encour­aged, spurred on to cre­ate ever more occa­sions for the appre­ci­a­tion and pro­mo­tion of Italy’s excel­lent extra vir­gin olive oils.”

The Trieste’s event con­firmed that qual­ity can still be achieved or even go above expec­ta­tions even in such dif­fi­cult years as it was 2014. Among the 15 final­ists of the Olio Capitale com­pe­ti­tion held on the last day of the event, there were excel­lent prod­ucts mainly com­ing from Southern Italy: Apulia, Sicily, Campania and Sardinia, and the three final win­ners came from Sicily (Nocellara dell’Etna by Scammacca del Murgo won for Light Fruity) and from Apulia (Patràun by Leone Sabino and Tenuta Torre di Mossa by De Carlo respec­tively won for Medium and Light Fruity).

Among prod­ucts from beyond Italy, Basilippo Gourmet by the Spanish Oleomorillo S.L and the Mate Timbro Istriano by the Croatian Agrofin D.O.O. were final­ists for the Light and Medium Fruity. The Croatian extra vir­gin received the pro­fes­sional pan­el’s Special Mention while the Apulian extra vir­gin by Le Tre Colonne received the con­sumers pan­el’s men­tion and the Sicilian Frantoi Cutrera received the restau­ra­teurs’ nod.

“Relative to what we had been expect­ing, qual­ity has been far higher,” noted Carlotta Pasetto, the Olio Capitale Competition’s coor­di­na­tor. ​“Of course, com­pared to last year the dif­fer­ences between the var­i­ous types of oil are less marked, espe­cially in terms of fruiti­ness and veg­e­tal tones,” she said, ​“but this is an inevitable con­se­quence of the dif­fi­cult year we have had. The 15 selected final­ists have pro­duced excel­lent oils.”

International busi­ness meet­ings between pro­duc­ers and buy­ers, hail­ing from the USA, Japan, Germany, Brazil, Denmark and many other coun­tries, were another key to suc­cess. ​“The strong point of this trade fair lies in its spe­cial­i­sa­tion. Here and nowhere else have I been able to find such an enor­mous vari­ety of qual­ity olive oils, and with very dis­tinct char­ac­ter­is­tics,” com­mented Paolo Orsolini, pres­i­dent of Orso Italian Speciality Foods, which imports Made in Italy prod­ucts to mar­kets in Florida.

The exhibit’s for­mat is becom­ing an inter­na­tional model, and a world­wide show­case for qual­ity Italian olive oil accord­ing to Antonio Paoletti, pres­i­dent of Trieste’s Chamber of Commerce, a state­ment which was also con­firmed by Colomba Mongiello, a Member of Congress who has devoted a large part of her polit­i­cal com­mit­ment to the extra vir­gin sec­tor. ​“This is a very impor­tant inter­na­tional show­case,” noted Mongiello. ​“We plan to assist Olio Capitale in the inter­na­tional pro­mo­tion of the Made in Italy agro-indus­try and extra vir­gin oils. This starts out from Friuli Venezia Giulia and trav­els through­out the world, let­ting peo­ple learn about Italian olive-grow­ing, the related cul­ture, and the cul­ture of healthy eat­ing.”

“In this dif­fi­cult year, Olio Capitale has con­tin­ued to grow: it is extra­or­di­nary to have suc­ceeded in attract­ing 250 exhibitors and 12,000 vis­i­tors, con­sid­er­able num­bers for a niche fair; shift­ing the open­ing day has proved a suc­cess­ful strat­egy, with Monday now ded­i­cated to restau­ra­teurs and con­nois­seurs who appre­ci­ated hav­ing more time for select­ing their pre­ferred oils,” Paoletti com­mented.

“I am also delighted to inform you that qual­ity extra vir­gin oil and Olio Capitale will soon have a fur­ther top-level inter­na­tional show­case: Hon. Mongiello, vice-pres­i­dent of the Parliament’s Antifraud Committee and mem­ber of the Agriculture Committee, is work­ing to ensure that there will be one day at the Expo di Milano ded­i­cated to Olio Capitale and to the excel­lence of Italian extra vir­gin olive oil, dur­ing which the win­ners of our Competition will be awarded their prizes.”

Olio Capitale thus passes the baton to Milan’s Expo, and next year’s 10th edi­tion is already planned March 5 – 8, 2016.

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