Sustainability Takes Root in the Hills Above Florence

Summary

Fattoria Poggio di Fiesole in the Florentine Hills has a long­stand­ing tra­di­tion of olive grow­ing and sus­tain­abil­ity, earn­ing a Gold Award for its organic blend of olive vari­eties. The estate has a rich his­tory dat­ing back to the Etruscans and con­tin­ues to pri­or­i­tize organic cul­ti­va­tion and qual­ity while adapt­ing to the chal­lenges of cli­mate change.

Nestled in the Florentine Hills, just north of the Tuscan cap­i­tal of Florence, Fattoria Poggio di Fiesole boasts a long­stand­ing tra­di­tion of olive grow­ing, guided by a vision of sus­tain­abil­ity that pre­dates the trend.

The estate’s organic blend of Frantoio, Leccino, Moraiolo, and Pendolino earned a Gold Award at the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, rec­og­nized for an expertly bal­anced pro­file with vibrant notes of arti­choke, herbs, arugula, and pep­per.

“The Etruscans were most likely already cul­ti­vat­ing olive trees on these slopes,” Pietro Hebel told Olive Oil Times. ​“In 1400, the prop­erty was home to a con­vent of nuns who made oil and raised sheep for wool. Later, it later passed to a feu­dal lord, before even­tu­ally enter­ing my cousins’ fam­ily.”

The farm was acquired in 1931 by Alberto Passigli, hailed as a vision­ary entre­pre­neur and among the founders of the renowned Maggio Musicale Fiorentino fes­ti­val. He wel­comed musi­cians and global thinkers to the estate, which evolved into a lively cul­tural retreat. His daugh­ter, Vanda, became a stu­dent of Eastern phi­los­o­phy and yoga under the guid­ance of renowned mas­ters, who reg­u­larly vis­ited the farm.

Vanda’s son, Alberto Scaravelli, car­ried for­ward her legacy of open­ness while forg­ing a deep bond with the land. He lis­tened to the lessons of local farm­ers. He immersed him­self in pio­neer­ing research on sus­tain­able cul­ti­va­tion, trans­form­ing these insights into the guid­ing prin­ci­ples of the estate once he took it under his care.

“My uncle Alberto embraced local knowl­edge while also engag­ing with the ear­li­est stud­ies on per­ma­cul­ture emerg­ing from Australia,” Hebel pointed out. ​“When he man­aged the farm, in the 1960s and 1970s, chem­i­cal fer­til­iz­ers and pes­ti­cides began arriv­ing in our area, but he chose never to use them, pre­serv­ing the purity of this land and reveal­ing a for­ward-think­ing vision.”

“Back then, dur­ing the era of the rural exo­dus, when many peo­ple were leav­ing the coun­try­side, many relied on chem­i­cals and new machin­ery to off­set for the grow­ing labor short­age,” Hebel added. ​“My uncle made a coun­ter­cul­tural choice, and for a while he was mis­taken for a con­ser­v­a­tive, though in fact he was pro­foundly ahead of his time. He adopted organic prin­ci­ples intu­itively, and today, sci­ence has con­firmed that his approach was sound.”

Scaravelli’s wife, Gabriella, suc­ceeded him in run­ning the com­pany from the 1990s and guided it until the 2000s, when their sons Enrico and Dario took over the reins. Soon after, Hebel and his wife Anna joined in sup­port of their cousins, ded­i­cat­ing them­selves to olive oil pro­duc­tion and over­see­ing the company’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

“Anna and I had a com­pletely dif­fer­ent life until five years ago,” Hebel recalled. ​“We lived in New York, where I worked in restau­rants and she pur­sued a career in acad­e­mia. It was there that we learned the impor­tance of the NYIOOC. Then, Anna took the ini­tia­tive to enter our oil. Winning a Gold Award affirmed not only the company’s ded­i­ca­tion to qual­ity but also that our deci­sion to move was the right one.”

The com­pany man­ages 17 hectares of orchards with 3,300 olive trees of native vari­eties, planted at alti­tudes rang­ing from 450 to 650 meters. Bordered by wood­land, the ancient groves flour­ish in alka­line clay soil.

Having sur­vived the dev­as­tat­ing frost of 1985, some cen­turies-old trees still stand defi­ant. Other sec­tions of the orchards, how­ever, were severely dam­aged and have since regrown, car­ry­ing the traces of that impact in their new forms.

“Scattered here and there in the plots are ancient trees with impos­ing trunks that with­stood that win­ter,” Hebel explained. ​“Those that were struck down sprout again from their stumps, reshap­ing them­selves and branch­ing into three or even five.”

“With that extreme event, my uncle already sensed that the cli­mate could be start­ing to change,” he added. ​“So he decided to cul­ti­vate higher, plant­ing 700 olive trees of the same local vari­eties at 650 meters. Today, they enjoy favor­able grow­ing con­di­tions, being spared from many of the prob­lems cli­mate change has brought to other areas.”

The groves, which pre­serve their tra­di­tional plant­ing lay­out, are fer­til­ized with nat­ural manure from organ­i­cally raised sheep, cat­tle, and chick­ens.

“We have always prac­ticed no tillage, a method that avoids turn­ing the soil to pro­tect its struc­ture, reduce the risk of ero­sion, and improve water absorp­tion,” Hebel spec­i­fied. ​“We cut the grass only once dur­ing the hottest days of the sum­mer, max­i­miz­ing water reten­tion and sup­port­ing bio­di­ver­sity. Our groves are alive with ben­e­fi­cial insects. During prun­ing, we shred the cut­tings and leave them on the ground to serve both as an addi­tional source of organic mat­ter and as mulch.”

Sustained by these prac­tices and by their own matu­rity, the olive trees flour­ish with­out the need for irri­ga­tion. Still, after chal­leng­ing years of drought, the return of more fre­quent rains dur­ing the warm months in the last two years has proved espe­cially ben­e­fi­cial.

“We have wit­nessed how cli­mate change can bring unex­pected shifts, along with the grow­ing threat of extreme events, like sud­den cloud­burst that can be a real threat,” Hebel added. ​“In all con­di­tions, we always strive to achieve the high­est qual­ity. Considering that olive trees have dif­fer­ent expo­sures and develop at slightly dif­fer­ent times, one vari­ety may pre­vail over another depend­ing on the year. Still, they always come together to form a per­fect har­mony in our blend.”

The olives are crushed at a local mill that boasts state-of-the-art tech­nol­ogy. The har­vest usu­ally begins in early October and con­tin­ues through November. The com­pany has relied on the same local har­vesters for the past thirty years, hon­or­ing their exper­tise and strength­en­ing com­mu­nity bonds.

The com­pany orga­nizes tours, invit­ing guests to explore the prop­er­ty’s cul­ture and his­tory. The farm­house, once home to nuns and later a cel­e­brated meet­ing place for yogis and thinkers, now stands as a refined hos­pi­tal­ity retreat. Guests can take part in guided tast­ings of olive oil and honey pro­duced from hives on the estate.

“We would like to grad­u­ally rein­tro­duce sheep, as in the estate’s orig­i­nal tra­di­tion, since their pres­ence would ben­e­fit the olive grove,” Hebel said. ​“We are cur­rently eval­u­at­ing how to orga­nize a small herd, among the many projects we are nur­tur­ing.”

“My uncle had the patience to carry his choices for­ward despite the skep­tics, hav­ing the vision to see beyond his time,” Hebel added. ​“Today, as we live and work on this pure land, we rec­og­nize the gift he gave us, and we are proud to con­tinue his path, aim­ing for the high­est qual­ity while safe­guard­ing the beauty and health of this trea­sured ter­ri­tory.”