Products
A Complex Journey Towards a Simple Product
After months of swelling under the summer sun, swaying in the Mediterranean’s saline breeze and absorbing organic fertilizer and cool well water, Gianfranco Becchina’s green Nocellara del Belice olives signal that they are ready by covering themselves in a white patina. Pickers are then called in to quickly, but gently harvest his olives for the pressing.
This happens every year around the beginning of October, but Gianfranco wouldn’t need to look at a calendar to know it is time. He lives on the estate, Tenuta Pignatelli in Castelvetrano, where his olive trees grow, and he catches the signs during one of his daily walks through 60 acres of groves around that time of year.
The Nocellara del Belice olives, native to southwestern Sicily, are one of Italy’s top varieties. Big, fleshy and full of flavor, they are grown by most farmers for the table olives market, and are therefore considered too precious for pressing. These olives have high levels of vitamins and antioxidants, which act as a natural preservative, lending the oil they yield a very long shelf-life. They are harvested in the white phase – just before they complete their maturation cycle by turning purple and black – to ensure the best flavor and top health benefits.
This early harvest is one amongst several costly yet natural agricultural practices applied at Tenuta Pignatelli, which allow for minimal to no use of pesticides. These in fact are generally needed most after the olives have reached full maturity and problems with insects start to arise. At that point, though, Becchina’s oil is already safely stored and decanting.
Rigorous production methods and strict hygienic conditions ensure that Olio Verde is the purest extra virgin olive oil that one can get.
First, the olives are gently handpicked and are conveyed on the same day to Gianfranco’s own state-of-the-art, continuous cycle mill, where they are handsorted, and the leaves and debris are removed before their transformation begins.
Within a few hours, they are washed in osmotized and clear water, which is renewed every few hours. They are then quickly crushed in a disk grinder (which replaces the old mill stones) followed by a gentle malaxation of the resulting pulp, pits included, to induce a pre-separation of the oil from the pomace. The oil is finally extracted through centrifugation (instead of the pressing of the pulp onto stacked mats).
“First pressing”, which this is, means that no chemicals are used during extraction. Furthermore, since the temperature is never allowed to rise above 70°F (21°C), this oil can be described, to say the least, as cold-pressed (by law, it must not exceed 80°F / 27°C to earn this label).
Owing to the producer’s care, attention, dedication and discipline during the growth and harvest stages, and thanks to his technical processing choices, there is no need to filter the oil. It is simply placed in its natural state in stainless steel containers away from light and heat in the ancient cellars of the Pignatelli castle, and bottled to order.
Olio Verde is cloudy, vividly green and peppery. It is lusciously fluid and smooth on the palate, silky between the lips, with piquant properties, and has a 0.1% acidity level. It has the intense freshness of a vintage olive oil and the purity issued from an outstanding production style.
These rare characteristics account for the multifunctionality of Olio Verde: as a one-stop oil, its uses range from raw drizzling to frying and baking. Made from the right olives, in the right place, at the right time and by the right people, Olio Verde is the genuine, healthy and rich result of a truly unique journey. And such is any product born out of the Becchina family’s commitment to excellence.
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