Al Piglio Seeks to Tap Potential of Frosinone’s Understated Terroir

An hour outside Rome, Frosinone is not widely known for olive oil production. Al Piglio hopes to change that with its World Competition win.

In the space of three years, Al Piglio transformed six hectares of neglected olive groves into an award-winning extra virgin olive oil brand. (Photo: Al Piglio)
By Paolo DeAndreis
Apr. 18, 2024 00:21 UTC
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In the space of three years, Al Piglio transformed six hectares of neglected olive groves into an award-winning extra virgin olive oil brand. (Photo: Al Piglio)

Over the past three years, Elisabetta Petrini and her fam­ily have trans­formed six hectares of par­tially neglected ancient olive groves in cen­tral Italy into an award-win­ning extra vir­gin olive oil oper­a­tion.

Al Piglio fin­ished the 2023/24 har­vest on a high, earn­ing a Silver Award for its Mezzogiorno brand, a medium-inten­sity organic Moraiolo mono­va­ri­etal, at the 2024 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

There’s so much poten­tial here. Growers and the entire pro­duc­tion chain need to rec­og­nize that much can be achieved. This is a unique ter­ri­tory with a unique her­itage.- Elisabetta Petrini, owner, Al Puglio

We are over­joyed to learn that we have received an award at the NYIOOC World Olive Competition,” she said. For me, it’s a dream come true.”

The world’s most pres­ti­gious qual­ity con­test applauded Al Puglio for its tast­ing sen­sa­tions of arti­choke, fig leaf, olive leaf, black pep­per and cof­fee.

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After study­ing as an olive oil som­me­lier, research­ing the best ways to man­age the pro­duc­tion process, and con­stantly seek­ing advice from those who are more knowl­edge­able and skilled, receiv­ing this recog­ni­tion is not only a great sat­is­fac­tion but, above all, a moti­va­tion to seek improve­ment con­tin­u­ously,” Petrini added.

Along with Moraiolo, Al Piglio grows Rosciola and Leccino olives in the province of Frosinone, about 55 kilo­me­ters east of Rome.

Rosciola is a beau­ti­ful local cul­ti­var that thrives in our rocky hills,” Petrini said. It has many unique char­ac­ter­is­tics and is sub­ject to early har­vest because it ripens ear­lier than the other olive vari­eties we grow.”

Apart from a hand­ful of excep­tions, the region around Piglia in north­ern Frosinone is not known for pro­duc­ing extra vir­gin olive oil.

This was the first chal­lenge we faced,” Petrini said. The local olive oil cul­ture, rooted in ancient prac­tices, does not typ­i­cally pri­or­i­tize qual­ity as we under­stand it today.”

As in many other regions of the coun­try, a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of small olive groves in the area are fam­ily-owned. When pro­duc­tive, these groves are pri­mar­ily used for the fam­i­ly’s own con­sump­tion. Pruning, fer­til­iz­ing and har­vest­ing often fol­low meth­ods passed down through gen­er­a­tions.

When I told the locals that we wanted to har­vest Rosciola first, mean­ing in early October, some were incred­u­lous,” Petrini said. Most of them are accus­tomed to har­vest­ing in December.”

Finding the right part­ner for milling the olives also proved chal­leng­ing. Most mills here would only open at the end of October,” Petrini said. We had to look else­where and found the right mills in the Colline Pontine area.”

It takes Petrini 30 to 45 min­utes to trans­port the olives from the grove to the mill. However, she hopes that her recent suc­cess at the World Competition will encour­age mills to start open­ing ear­lier in the sea­son.

Look at Rosciola and other local cul­ti­vars,” Petrini said. There’s so much poten­tial here. Growers and the entire pro­duc­tion chain need to rec­og­nize that much can be achieved. This is a unique ter­ri­tory with a unique her­itage.”

profiles-the-best-olive-oils-production-europe-olive-oil-times

Petrini hopes her World Competition win encourages more producers in Frosinone to embrace an early harvest. (Photo: Al Piglio)

This aware­ness is also reflected in the touris­tic venue Petrini and her fam­ily have built around their olive groves and vine­yards.

When our guests stay overnight in our suites or come for din­ner at our restau­rant, we pro­vide them with a list of extra vir­gin olive oils from all over Italy,” she said. Moreover, we dis­cuss extra vir­gin olive oil qual­ity and char­ac­ter­is­tics with them.”

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Together, we taste three excel­lent olive oils to help them dis­cern the dif­fer­ences between the regions they rep­re­sent,” Petrini added.

At the table, Al Piglio cus­tomers find a bot­tle of the far­m’s extra vir­gin olive oil to use as they wish. I learned this in Spain, where high-pro­file restau­rants always present their cus­tomers with a bot­tle of high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil ready to use,” Petrini said.

For Al Piglio, this year’s NYIOOC award caps off a suc­cess­ful sea­son. I must say, this cam­paign was prob­a­bly a bit bet­ter for us than most in the region,” Petrini said. In our case, the last sea­son was bet­ter than the one before.”

According to Petrini, cli­mate change poses one of the most sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges for high-qual­ity olive oil pro­duc­ers in the long term.

We can’t reverse cer­tain dynam­ics, but we can try to adapt and mit­i­gate the impact, find­ing the best solu­tions to con­tinue improv­ing our agri­cul­tural prac­tices,” she said.

This is also why Al Piglio was founded with sus­tain­abil­ity in mind. Thanks to my back­ground in the energy sec­tor, adopt­ing a pho­to­voltaic energy pro­duc­tion infra­struc­ture that cov­ers all our needs came nat­u­rally,” Petrini said, not­ing other sus­tain­able choices, includ­ing not using any plas­tic.

Beyond cli­mate change, a major chal­lenge for this region, and prob­a­bly for all of Italy, is to carve out a true iden­tity in the mar­ket,” Petrini said. This coun­try’s bio­di­ver­sity is unpar­al­leled, espe­cially when it comes to olives.”

The diver­sity, qual­ity and unique­ness of the prod­ucts we can offer in Italy are unmatched by any other coun­try,” she con­cluded. We should be more aware of this and value it at lev­els pre­vi­ously reserved only for wine.”


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