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This time last year, olive grower Fabienne Maestracci was afraid her trees would have to be destroyed. She was not alone: The island’s 500 olive oil pro­duc­ers were alarmed after the dreaded Xylella fas­tidiosa bac­terium had been spot­ted in Bonifacio, the most south­ern tip of the French Isle de la Beauté.

France’s Agriculture Minister vis­ited the area, the infected plants were burned, and every­one breathed sighs of relief.

Things are dif­fer­ent this year. Maestracci’s har­vest­ing meth­ods for her mono­va­ri­etal were awarded a dou­ble dis­tinc­tion at Corsica’s olive oil fair Fiera di l’alivu, the yearly event held in mid-July. She received the recog­ni­tion for har­vest­ing her olive oil using a net, and another for har­vest­ing directly from the tree.

It was the first time such awards were bestowed by Corsica’s union of olive oil pro­duc­ers since L’Huile d’Olive de Corse-Oliu di Corsica decided last year to clas­sify olive oil from the island into the two dif­fer­ent types.

Hard-work­ing Maestracci explained why har­vest­ing olives from her 550 trees is tricky and risky. ​“The trees are old, hun­dreds of years old, they are not aligned, and they are also very high which makes them dif­fi­cult for pick­ing.”

Maestracci starts har­vest­ing at the begin­ning of November and fin­ishes in February. ​“It is a long period, any­thing can hap­pen. Also, we pick the olives ripe, so we have to work quickly,” she said.

Pruning of the local vari­ety Zinzala at her plan­ta­tion is a seri­ous affair. Zinzala olive trees adapt well to the very cold win­ters and hot sum­mers, but they grow hor­i­zon­tally thus requir­ing a lot of prun­ing. Maestracci has per­fected the Japanese tech­nique of prun­ing which she cred­its with her suc­cess.

Her cus­tomers, she explained, love the oils har­vested using the tra­di­tional method when the ripe olives are allowed to fall nat­u­rally onto the nets, and they can tell the dif­fer­ence between the oils.

Oil from ripe Zinzala olives has a fla­vor sim­i­lar to almonds and nuts. Fabienne said the oil made from the net method ren­der a taste of dried almonds, while those picked from the tree have a taste of fresh almonds.

She con­stantly wor­ries about Xylella fas­tidiosa and feels that more needs to be done to elim­i­nate the dis­ease, not only in Corsica but every­where. Although there is some san­i­tary con­trol, she feels that author­i­ties should pay more atten­tion to trace­abil­ity when import­ing plants.

“We olive oil pro­duc­ers have to put the bot­tling date on our oil, but when you buy a plant, even the coun­try of ori­gin is not men­tioned.”

The Mediterranean area will always be under threat, and even the dry stone walls in Maestracci’s orchard can­not fully pro­tect her Zinzala trees. More than any­thing she wants to con­tinue the Corsican tra­di­tion of pro­duc­ing sweet olive oil. And her Oliu di Aliva is one of the best.

• Gie du Taravu


• Oliu di Corsica