Sardinia, Lazio Shine at 26th 'Ercole Olivario'

One hun­dred extra vir­gin olive oils took part in the final stage of the 26^thErcole Olivario, the award for the Italian regional excel­lence orga­nized by the Italian Union of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Handicraft and Agriculture (Unioncamere), in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Chamber of Commerce of Perugia with the sup­port of the National Chamber System.

237 labels came from 17 regions, seven of which were awarded: Sardinia led with 5 awards, fol­lowed by Lazio and Puglia with 3 recog­ni­tions each, and Umbria, Tuscany, Trentino and Abruzzo, each with one award.

The jury, com­posed by tasters rep­re­sent­ing the olive oil regions and con­ducted by the panel leader Angela Canale, selected twelve win­ners, in accor­dance with two cat­e­gories, PDO/PGI and extra vir­gin, sub­di­vided into three classes, light, medium and intense, to which were added some spe­cial prizes.

On April 7, at the audi­to­rium of the University for Foreigners of Perugia, the award cer­e­mony was mod­er­ated by the jour­nal­ist Maurizio Pescari in the pres­ence of the rec­tor Giovanni Paciullo, the pres­i­dent of the Chamber of Commerce of Perugia and pres­i­dent of the National Committee Ercole Olivario, Giorgio Mencaroni, and the pro­fes­sor of food sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy at the University of Perugia, Maurizio Servili, who gave a Lectio Magistralis on the impor­tance of bio­di­ver­sity in the qual­ity of Italian olive oils and tem­per­a­tures in the extrac­tion process.

“We launched this impor­tant com­pe­ti­tion twenty-six years ago with the objec­tive to map the excel­lence of the many beau­ti­ful ter­ri­to­ries of the penin­sula,” said the pres­i­dent of the com­pe­ti­tion com­mit­tee, Giorgio Mencaroni. ​“We rec­og­nize the value of the oper­a­tors in the sec­tor, who carry out a con­stant qual­i­ta­tive improve­ment, and of the pro­fes­sional tasters, who are com­mit­ted to pro­mot­ing qual­ity pro­duc­tions.”

“We are pleased with these recog­ni­tions espe­cially because our com­pany was recently founded,” said Graziano Pau, the pres­i­dent of the olive grow­ers’ coop­er­a­tive of Oliena, in the province of Nuoro, in Sardinia. ​“This is our first pro­duc­tion, as we took the reins of a com­pany cre­ated at the begin­ning of last cen­tury, and chose to focus on qual­ity,” he remarked after receiv­ing an award for the best medium fruity extra vir­gin olive oil and a spe­cial prize for new com­pa­nies. ​“It was an excep­tional sea­son and we are proud of this recog­ni­tion of the vari­ety Nera di Oliena, which is an expres­sion of our ter­ri­tory, where olive groves char­ac­ter­ize a won­der­ful land­scape in the heart of Sardinia.”

Thirteen extra vir­gin olive oils from Lazio, which was the most rep­re­sented region, took part in the national com­pe­ti­tion. They were all suc­cess­ful at the 25^th edi­tion of Orii del Lazio — Capolavori del gusto — the con­test for the best extra vir­gin olive oils of the region, pro­moted by Unioncamere Lazio.

The Temple of Hadrian, the sug­ges­tive head­quar­ters of the Chamber of Commerce of Rome, hosted the award cer­e­mony on March 24. During the event, the sec­re­tary gen­eral of Unioncamere Lazio, Pietro Abate under­lined ​“the role of the com­pe­ti­tion in pro­mot­ing the regional pro­duc­tions, which reached the high­est lev­els of qual­ity.”

“Eighty-two thou­sand hectares of olive groves and four pro­tected des­ig­na­tions of ori­gin (Sabina, Canino, Tuscia and Colline Pontine) give an idea of the impor­tance of our extra vir­gin olive oils in the con­text of the national agri-food excel­lence,” the pres­i­dent of Unioncamere Lazio, Lorenzo Tagliavanti remarked.

Twenty-three par­tic­i­pants from the province of Latina, 21 from Viterbo, 13 from Rieti, 9 from Rome and 7 from Frosinone com­peted in two cat­e­gories. Other spe­cial prizes, includ­ing the Critics’ Award given by agri-food jour­nal­ists, were bestowed.

The win­ners were selected by a pro­fes­sional panel through tast­ing ses­sions held at the chem­i­cal lab­o­ra­tory of the Chamber of Commerce of Rome, which is the body autho­rized to carry out chem­i­cal and phys­i­cal ana­lyzes for the cer­ti­fi­ca­tions of pro­tected des­ig­na­tion of ori­gin. The tech­ni­cal orga­ni­za­tion of the com­pe­ti­tion was imple­mented by Agro Camera, a spe­cial com­pany of the Chamber of Commerce of Rome for the devel­op­ment of the agri-food sec­tor.

“We are so glad about this recog­ni­tion,” said Alessandro Donati of the Frantoio Oleario Narducci in Moricone. ​“At the begin­ning of the sea­son, drought caused con­cern, but then the weather has set­tled down, and rains at the right time allowed us to obtain a very good prod­uct: fra­grant, with har­monic bit­ter­ness and pun­gency,” pointed out the pro­ducer from the province of Rome, as run­ner-up in the medium fruity PDO Sabina cat­e­gory. ​“We recently renewed the machin­ery of our mill which gave us a great oil, and this is a reward of our com­mit­ment to qual­ity.”