When considering the market introduction of our new, food-Oscar winning Olio Verde al Limone, there is little one can say to chefs, home cooks, journalists, retailers, who respond that they do not care much for “flavored” olive oil. They are mostly right to think badly of such items. Plus, why meddle with their conception, since quite often, they are already happy consumers of our “classic” Olio Verde (without lemon) which has achieved a ton of success, garnered worldwide recognition and appreciation, but still needs as much consensus as possible to keep growing. Why push its lemon-scented twin… never mind how excellent it too is.
Well, the question however begs to be resolved. The general take on flavored olive oil, amongst gourmets and the culinary world’s top palates, that it is bad, is based on the same misunderstanding as once upon a time beliefs that olive oil had to be heavy, not suited for cooking, good only to relieve a Mediterranean culture’s nostalgia for its pre-immigration past.
Firstly, Olio Verde al Limone is produced by Gianfranco Becchina in a unique way. Nobody else manufactures flavored olive oil in the manner he does, and still very few produce olive oil in general following the same exacting principles. Both products, Olio Verde and Olio Verde al Limone are the fruit of one man’s invention. And to diffuse any doubts once and for all, his flavored olive oil does not entail any infusing or adding of incongruous elements to the pure olive oil base… Therefore, no alteration is involved.
Why, to start from the beginning, is the flavored olive oil “category” perceived as risky by many olive oil aficionados and connoisseurs? Aromatized olive oils, as they are called in Europe, have in fact served the dishonest purpose of covering up the imperfections of less than pristine olive oils, of old, irregular, expired ones, in need of resuscitation as it were.
Olive oil, especially the “extra virgin” grade, already has more lives than a cat, as it is, given that over 95% of e.v.o.o. labeled products out there have undergone more tampering, cutting, extending, cleansing, deodorizing, recoloring, reflavoring, reshaping, remarketing than recycled plastic or any petrol byproduct! When lucky, in most cases, you get less than 1% real extra virgin olive oil in a batch labeled as such… that’s how bad things are… and flavored olive oils are more likely to be on that wrong side of the fence than regular olive oil. The consumer fraud quotient is higher too, given that extra flavor is often falsely considered as added value, so that the product can be sold for even more than the non-flavored version, for no good reason at all, and at the total expense of gullible, of un- or misinformed customers.
Inauthentic olive oils, let us clarify that, whether passed as top-grade (extra super premium virgin) or fancily flavored with white truffle bits and the likes, are not worth anyone’s wallet nor time nor tastebuds! However, few notice when an olive oil is true or not. Such is the sad state of the olive oil market, in producing countries and internationally. Despite increasing consumer awareness, and actions on part of exporting countries’ customs cracking down on the fraud, the situation isn’t currently getting any better. And farmers who supply millers, bottlers, packagers and resellers with bulk product, and as opposed to the latter, aren’t making a living from the production of olives, no matter how artisanal (read: better quality yet costlier because less cost-efficient production) or industrial (read: south of Spain, South America, Australia’s hyper mechanized setups) the method employed. It’s the market’s inability to recognize, evaluate, absorb the product that is the cause, not production logistics and costs! More customer education is needed, honest marketing and laws to stop the 95% fake olive oil distribution.
So why, would one be tempted to ask the producer of the classic, food-oscar winner Olio Verde (yes Becchina has won 2 such awards), why mess with customers’ already fine-line perception of a product’s purity, by creating a twin product, Olio Verde al Limone attached to a commercial category generally viewed as dubious?
Well, for one, Becchina loves a good challenge. Even flavored olive oil can be produced right!
In 1989, with his first olive oil, the classic Olio Verde, Becchina set new standards in olive oil production. They remain unmatched to this day. Sure, there are other methods, other philosophies out there, but come visit Tenuta Pignatelli in October, witness the harvest and production, and compare, and be the judge of it yourself. He has created expectations in chefs and home cooks that no one dared to dream of in the days of buttery (as in heavy), refined (as in laundered), nutty (as in close to rancid) olive oils. He introduced green, fresh, fruity and cookable (yes, you can’t cook with olive oil unless it’s authentic AND fresh). He also happened to have been born in the land of one of the world’s best olive, the Nocellara del Belice. The grandest olive, only from Sicily. It is unlikely he would have come up with his personal take and innovation on the product had he not grown up in that context, being five years old and seeking warmth amidst the piles of rotting olives in the days… Of course not.
The same motivation and conditions brought about Olio Verde al Limone around 2007. Becchina’s olive grove is also interspersed with lemons of a fantastic variety, the Femminello: 3000 olive trees and 700 lemon trees, growing in the richest of clay soils, with plenty of water, nourishment, and attention. Trees which Becchina refused to cut down, despite the lacking commercial outlet for its fruit, since Europe’s citrus markets are monopolized by the Spaniards, and Sicilians say of lemons that they have such little value that “They throw them at you!” when you go buy them. However, lemons, such as olives, as understood by Becchina, have huge potential, despite being widely underestimated by farmers and by the industry alike. Their day will come, but until then, most Sicilian lemons are abandoned, a small percentage harvested only to go into maceration for the manufacturing of essential oil. At local food markets, the retail price on the street is inferior to €0,50/kg (between 10 and 15 pieces). Compare that to €0,50/piece for Spanish lemons and €1/piece for Sicilian lemons at select London, Paris, Zurich or NY stalls.
Becchina had long been producing his much admired house recipe of Green Limoncello Liquor, and Gabriella, his daughter, had been serving guests her own very personal take on Green Lemon Marmalade pairing it with cheeses, ricotta, breads, yogurt, using the Tenuta Pignatelli fruit, but with five crops a year, no way the sales of limoncello and jam would ever take up all of the production. This was leaving fruit to sit unpicked as a decorative frame for the olive grove’s visitors, who’d find themselves invited to pick as many as they wanted to accompany them on their further journey through Sicily, filling their bags, suitcases, cars, vans, buses, with lemon and lemon blossom scent.
So in 2007 Becchina decided to try and apply his lemon peeling technique to olive oil making, just for the fun of it. One day before the end of the harvest and the pressing of his olives, he announced that everyone would be needed in the kitchens the next day to help peel off the thin zest of thousands of lemons picked that same morning. And so it was, amongst moans and raised eyebrows, office and farm staff proceeded to the task and that afternoon, Becchina added the lemon zest to the olives being crushed. The result was outstanding right off the bat. Two years later the product was being distributed across the world. And in 2010 it won another Sofi Award in NYC.
For the sake of completing the experiment, Becchina did try and infuse lemon peel in some olive oil over a couple of days at room temperature, to see what that would taste like. And sure enough, it tasted wonderful. But was the biochemical and microorganic makeup of an infused olive oil going to be as stable and safe as the extraction of the essential oils from the fresh fruit peel at the same time as the oil was being extracted from the olive fruit, in the mill, via crushing, malaxing and spinning? Two oils being extracted together, from the olive fruit and from the lemon zest – there couldn’t possibly be a more genuine, simple, direct technique. - GaB
“Naturally the honest people are getting terribly undercut,” he says. “There’s a huge unfair advantage in favor of the bad stuff. At the same time, consumers are being defrauded of the health and culinary benefits of great olive oil.”
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