Umbria is famous for many things, among them olive oil. And with the arrival last week of Vicky from Washington, DC and Johnny Madge from Sabina, we were going to see just why.

We joined the olive oil band wagon nearly two decades ago. Our retail store, Bella Italia, was opened in part to import extra virgin olive oil from Italy to a small but growing audience in America. Since then EVOO has literally exploded into the collective consciousness of Americans. It is touted for its health benefits, its natural pureness and, not surprisingly, for its extraordinary taste. We couldn’t agree more.

Olive oil has magical health benefits, its polyphenols possessing antioxidant properties that slow aging and reputedly cure or mitigate all sorts of ills from tumors to hemorrhoids. And as an ingredient in food, it has no equal. Olive oil not so much flavors dishes as it is a conduit, unlocking the flavors already present within. It truly is a unique elixir with a fascinating past and a checkered present. For those interested in learning more about olive oil, from soup to nuts, I would highly recommend Tom Mueller’s best selling book on the subject, Extravirginity.

We regularly visit a number of olive oil mills in the hills that run from Assisi to Spoleto, one of Italy’s olive oil breadbaskets, if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphor. During our fall Food and Wine tours we share with our guests the opportunity to experience the olive harvest and the pressing of the season’s first extravirgin olive oil, the ultimate reward being a spoonful of green gold that emerges from the spigot at the end of the mechanical crushing and extracting process. It is a taste and an experience that is unforgettable.

Over the past week, however, we had the opportunity to visit some new frantoios in the area, three that run the gamut from family produced to estate produced to enterprise produced. All three visits were interesting glimpses into the processes and as interestingly, the motivations of the producers who toil to transform hard bitter fruits into luscious, flavorful, healthy olive oil.

Our first visit was arranged by our friend Vicky who was visiting us for just a couple of days from Washington, DC. As a chef and wine professional, Vicky has plenty of contacts in the food world and plenty here in Italy. We had accompanied her the day before on couple of winery visits, one of which was a leisurely visit with Filippo Antonelli, the owner of the Antonelli winery in Montefalco. The following day our group packed into Aldo’s van and headed into the mountains near Spoleto, above the hamlet of Castel Ritaldo. There, Andrea Panella and his family entertained our group for hours, treating us to, among other things, their olive oil which is produced by hand by the family on their rocky estate that not so much rolls as it does heaves and plunges. We began our tasting outdoors on an isolated mountaintop that is surrounded by other peaks. There, another of our guests, Johnny Madge, an olive oil aficionado and expert whom we had met briefly some months before in New York at the first New York International Olive Oil Competition explained to our group of non-experts how to taste olive oil and what to look for. Maguyver-like he demonstrated how oil is extracted from olive paste using a plastic cup, some bottled water, olive oil and a knife. And as we tasted and enjoyed the Panella family hospitality in this rugged, natural setting, we were treated to a symphony of thunder claps and flashes of lightning, eventually leading us move indoors to the family’s modest but inviting stone house. There for the next hour or so we enjoyed not only their company, but their homemade wine and their potent wild cherry liqueur. It was as enjoyable a visit as one could imagine, completely unscripted, unplanned and unforgettable. It is the type of visit that you can only have in the country and the type of visit that we have come to know and love in our native Umbria.

The following day was devoted to, in addition to lots of eating, more frantoio visits. Our first of the day took us up a windy road just outside the city walls of Perugia, the regional capital of Umbria. Here, so close to this cosmopolitan city one might not expect to find a thriving olive oil mill, but the Trampolini family has been doing just that, producing Umbrian olive oil since the 1700s in an ancient mill that was originally built by the Knights Templar. On another picture perfect day we were greeted by Antonio Trampolini who, with his sons runs this expansive business that produces a number of different olive oils and supplies restaurants, hotels and businesses with private label oils as well as Trampolini branded offerings. In contrast to the rustic presentation the day before with the Panella family, Trampolini offered a more polished presentation, with toasted bruschetta drenched in extravirgin olive oil that was ladled out of stone amphora and a full length video presentation tracing the development of olive oil making from the family’s Templar forebears to the present. Johnny, our expert assumed the role of guide, describing interesting facets of the family’s production process and leading us on a tasting of their olive oils, which feature the region’s pungent moriaolo olive. At one point he gasped while looking around the tasting room/show room/olive oil museum, pointing out a long copper tube that resembled a giant hollow golf tee. Antonio, who was justly proud of the bits of olive oil history he had assembled in this museum started to explain what the device was, but before he could finish Johnny exclaimed that the “suppository” was used in ancient times to thaw out frozen amphorae of olive oil in the winter time, by placing the end in the congealed oil and adding boiling water to the tube. Antonio was impressed, noting that not a single Italian visitor had ever divined the device’s purpose. Johnny, an Englishman who moved to Italy over three decades ago scored one for Queen and country.

After a relaxing lunch at an osteria just outside Trevi, ground zero for Umbrian olive oil, we made our way to oleioficio Viola, producer of award winning oils and considered one of the best producers in the world. We were accompanied on our visit by our friend Simone, the proprietor of Bevagna’s le Delizie del Borgo restaurant, who is a close friend of Marco Viola, as well as a longtime customer of the mill’s.

For Johnny, who had taken up our invitation to visit us with a hint of trepidation (and who can blame him, as we had met him only briefly in New York and then shot him an email invitation several months later to come stay with us and tour around Umbria) a visit to Viola was the crowning achievement. For Johnny is not so much an olive oil enthusiast as he is an olive oil lunatic (and I say that in only the nicest sense). His enthusiasm for and love of olive oil is truly boundless and infectious. Even his business cards and email address say “I love olive oil.” He truly does and in Viola he clearly found everything that he loves in olive oil. As he warmed and sniffed and slurped Viola’s offerings he became more and more excited, culminating in the variety he believes to be Viola’s best after which I thought we might have to haul him off to a hospital. Olive oil is supposed to be good for the heart but I feared Viola’s oils might cause Johnny to have a heart attack. Tasting and learning about olive oil from someone not just with knowledge, as Johnny clearly has, but passion, which he has in even more abundance, is not just a treat, but it is a key for unlocking one’s own passion and appreciation. I know that the others in our group benefited greatly from his presence and his enthusiasm. He really does love olive oil.

Two days, three olive mills. Here in Umbria it is possible to witness the entire spectrum of an industry that is so vital to and so essentially Umbrian. But while each experience was different – some bottles emblazoned with international awards while others were served in plastic water bottles – one thing remained constant. Here in Umbria, where olive oil is not just a product, not just an ingredient, but a way of life, they still produce it with respect, integrity and wholesomeness. And that, more than chemical makeup, acidity levels or other technical measures is what makes it truly extravirgin.

Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy