OLIVES AND OLIVE GROVES

In Umbria, in the green heart of Italy, between the coasts of Mount Subasio, within the sub-area to a protected designation of origin of Assisi-Spoleto hills rise the green foliage of the olive groves of the members of Spello uccd Frantoio.

Altitude

They are located at an altitude starting at 350 and reaches the 650 m above sea level. About 400 hectares of land covers olivetato mostly on steep slopes with the support “of the pictorial dry walls”.

They are caressed by a special microclimate, the morphology of the calcareous soil and stony, and supported by the perennial plant care from our members. These are all the elements necessary for the cultivation of the olive tree and a healthy and unique growth of the fruit.

Olive cultivation in Spello is a multifunctional excellence; environment, landscape, tourism. Its cultivation has involved different generations, different cultures, up to the present day, in which technological progress has contributed to a huge leap in quality for olive growing.

So today, the olive world is the result of a long and established history.

As with any agricultural product, also the oil quality is strongly influenced by the weather conditions in the 11 months between a crop and the other. In particular, the olive tree is affected by the drought as strong moisture, frost if they occur in the spring when the plant is in a vegetative movement of the late summer hailstorms when the fruits are already well advanced.

All these elements can determine whether poor harvests that a lower quality. The olive tree is a secular plant, that means living in a strong symbiosis with the environment where it is placed, acquiring a “genetic code” to the specific characteristics of that area; this means that even with inaudible (to humans) changes in the microclimate, will change the value of the quality you will get.

Summarizing it can be said that the oil obtained from the same olive tree has some different quality nuances from one harvest to the next, and this is a factor that greatly differentiates man’s ability to endeavor to offer a product with a taste as possible constant in time.