Lazio Producers Achieve Greatness

Part of our con­tin­u­ing cov­er­age of the 2020 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.

The results of the eighth NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition proved once again the com­mit­ment and adher­ence to the high­est qual­ity stan­dards of Italian pro­duc­ers, who sub­mit­ted the most entries and col­lected more awards than any other coun­try.

A total of 139 awards went to Italian farm­ers at the world’s most pres­ti­gious olive oil qual­ity com­pe­ti­tion. Among the coun­try’s win­ning pro­duc­ers, quite a few hailed from the cen­tral region of Lazio.

Three of this year’s award win­ners came from the Tuscia area, in north­ern Lazio, and boast a his­tory of suc­cess at the NYIOOC.

Among them was Tamia, which earned two Gold Awards, for their organic Caninese mono­va­ri­etal and an organic blend.

“We are happy about these recog­ni­tions! Every time we get them, it is a great feel­ing,” said Pietro Re, the man­ager of the com­pany, which has been com­mit­ted to qual­ity since its foun­da­tion in 1928.

The Tamia brand comes from an olive grove of about 10,000 trees, includ­ing Canino, Moraiolo, Frantoio, Maurino and Leccino vari­eties.

“These Golds come at the end of a period that, at first, seemed dif­fi­cult,” Re said. ​“But in the end, it gave us the oppor­tu­nity to com­pletely rethink our work, and the choices we made proved to be absolutely suc­cess­ful.”

“We have focused every­thing on the sat­is­fac­tion of con­sumers, since I believe that high-qual­ity oil is no longer reserved for an elite,” he added. ​“More qual­ity means more health and well­be­ing. That’s why it must be avail­able for all.”

Always look­ing for new chal­lenges and ways to improve tech­niques and meth­ods of pro­duc­tion, Re started to col­lab­o­rate with a net­work of qual­i­fied grow­ers through­out Italy over the past few years in order to expand his pro­duc­tion lines.

Relying on the sup­port of a highly pro­fes­sional staff, Re said that Tamia’s mis­sion is to pur­sue the high­est pos­si­ble lev­els of qual­ity, guar­an­tee­ing full trace­abil­ity and sus­tain­abil­ity.

The land which was once inhab­ited by Etruscans is also home to Traldi Farm and its extra vir­gin olive oils: the Caninese mono­va­ri­etal, Eximius, and the blend, Athos.

“It is a great sat­is­fac­tion for us to be among the win­ners of the NYIOOC again,” said Francesca Boni, who runs the com­pany cre­ated by her grand­fa­ther, Angelo, right after the Second World War.

“From that harsh expe­ri­ence, he learned the impor­tance of being able to pro­duce food for the liveli­hood of com­mu­ni­ties and he pur­chased a piece of land,” she said. ​“Since he wanted to be help­ful in that dif­fi­cult time, he paid more than what was required for the plot from the pre­vi­ous owner.”

That act of gen­eros­ity marked the begin­ning of a story of qual­ity and hos­pi­tal­ity now car­ried on suc­cess­fully by Boni and her mother, Elisabetta Traldi.

Their farm, which includes an envi­ron­men­tally-friendly resort, has 3,000 Canino, Frantoio, Moraiolo, Pendolino and Leccino trees at its heart, all of which are sus­tain­ably grown.

“The old­est olive trees are located at a dis­tance of eight or 11 meters (26 or 36 feet) from each other,” Boni said, explain­ing that the grove still retains the orig­i­nal plant­ing lay­out. ​“We are going to add another 3,000 trees of dif­fer­ent vari­eties, accord­ing to a more ratio­nal­ized scheme, with the pur­pose to enrich the range of fla­vors of our prod­ucts.”

The con­stant improve­ment of the pro­duc­tion process com­bined with great care for the land are the key ingre­di­ents of the endur­ing qual­ity of Traldi farm, Boni said.

The town of Vetralla is also the home of Tuscus, which earned a Silver Award for Re Laris Grand Cru.

“It is won­der­ful to obtain recog­ni­tion in such a big, inter­na­tional con­test,” said mas­ter miller Giampaolo Sodano, who man­ages the com­pany with his wife, Fabrizia Cusani. ​“The awards we have won over the years are con­fir­ma­tion of a qual­ity trend which we strive to keep up and con­sol­i­date.”

Three years ago, after car­ry­ing out some exper­i­ments on vari­eties, the pair blended their Canino, grown in the area of Nepi, with Peranzana olives pro­duced by a farmer friend in Foggia, Puglia.

“We selected our best fruits to obtain what we called Grand Cru, which is cer­ti­fied accord­ing to the spec­i­fi­ca­tion of the Consortium of Artisan Mills FAPI. I like to call it the friend­ship olive oil,” Sodano said. ​“Our other six prod­uct lines are obtained from 7,000 olive trees grown at L’Olivaia, where the autochtho­nous Canino and Bolzone are flanked by Leccino, Frantoio and Maurino trees.”

Covering around 18 hectares (44.5 acres) of fer­tile, vol­canic soil, the grove is divided into sec­tors, sep­a­rated by rose bushes planted at the head of the rows to give off scents and mark the dif­fer­ent vari­eties.

However, this is not just a mat­ter of aes­thet­ics: since its foun­da­tion in 1992, Tuscus has adopted an eth­i­cal code, with social and envi­ron­men­tal respon­si­bil­ity at its core.

In the south of the Lazio region, Sonnino earned a Gold Award for the organic Itrana mono­va­ri­etal, pro­duced by Lucia Iannotta.

“It is great to receive such recog­ni­tion,” Iannotta told Olive Oil Times. ​“It was the first time we par­tic­i­pated at the NYIOOC and the emo­tional impact was bol­stered by the day-by-day unveil­ing of the win­ners.”

Iannotta runs the farm, which was founded by her grand­fa­ther in 1952 and there­after man­aged by her father.

“It’s nor­mal now, but when I started out it was not so easy for a woman to be the head of a com­pany in what has tra­di­tion­ally been a male world,” Iannotta said. ​“Against all odds, I took the reins and with the help of my mother and sis­ters, I reached high qual­ity lev­els in the pro­duc­tion of our extra vir­gin olive oils, as well as in a wide range of olive oil-based prod­ucts, includ­ing pick­les and condi­ments.”

Iannotta’s olive groves are ancient, com­posed of 5,000 trees, which are organ­i­cally grown on ter­races sup­ported by dry-stone walls. While the major­ity of the trees are the Itrana vari­ety, there are also some Leccino trees, used to pol­li­nate.

These ancient, enchant­ing man­u­facts add beauty to the land­scape and over­look the coast, where accord­ing to the myth, Ulysses met the enchantress Circe.

“When I look out from our orchard toward the sea, I see her pro­file sculpted on the hill­top of Mount Circeo,” Iannotta said. ​“And it looks like she is watch­ing over our olive trees.”