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You never really know how the war will end until you are at the last battle. Perhaps it is true that you give the best of yourself when you have to face tough tests. Equally true is that awareness, constant care and compelling commitment can be the weapons that are suitable for preventing surprises. By reapplying a celebrated adagio of the wretched but brave Don Quixote, we could say that “man prepared, half saved”.
In a difficult, changeable year for many, the oil campaign seems to have come to the stand for some time now. Those who could not shelter or who moved too late had to surrender, even giving up, or attempted to rescue what they could, bringing to their olive oil mill olives sharply compromised by the oil fly attacks. Needless to say, we have noticed a significant drop in the quantity of olives brought by third parties, so much that it seems we are back in time, two years ago, at the annus horribilis of the 2014 harvest.
In fact, however, it is incorrect to make comparisons: 2014 was a very uncertain, sometimes dramatic, era, during which few had survived, while in a campaign of difficult management but with great potential like 2016, to those who gave it, the olives have returned. To those who have been caring for, to those who observed them silently, to those who shared with them the summer and winter frosts, to those who protected them as it should and how it could. A small kindness, in exchange for beautiful, fresh, healthy, intact olives, like ours.
Regular monitoring, timely and targeted interventions, continued attention, the use of organic farming products, this is what saved our production, guaranteeing, even under unfavorable climatic conditions, a raw material with excellent health and excellent quality. Knowledge and experience, coupled with new technologies, have succeeded in making perfection what was cultivated with patience and love: a careful, meticulous and scrupulous workmanship, as we do, has allowed us to obtain a clean product, with clear, sharp but complex and elegant notes.
In this 2016 harvest, there are some cultivars that have expressed themselves particularly vigorously and accurately, one on all the Frantoio variety, which is giving us magnificent fruits. This year Villa Magra and Villa Magra Grand Cru have a sophisticated, refined structure with highly accentuated, but harmoniously balanced vegetable tips; bitter and spicy are long and persistent on the palate and somewhat marked, but well-balanced. Another cultivar that stands out in our 2016 production is Moraiolo, whose remarkable bitter, decisive and penetrating load fades into a long and soft finish of chicory and almond.
Of course, I would be lying if I said it was a walk to get some results and I would be a liar if I denied the difficulties that all of us will be meeting in the coming year. We live our olive trees all year round and every day: we look at them, scrutinize them, pamper them, walk through infinite steps, whole miles to avoid leaving a tree, and then everything seems to play on the final in the two months of harvesting. Even this year, when we saw the olive grove square filled with olives, like so many small green spots illuminating the gray of the autumn months, the heart leaked and swelled with pride and excitement. I know, it will not be an easy year. But as long as there is olive, there is hope.
