• Home
  • Cocktails
  • Culture
    • Dance
    • Opera
    • Theatre
    • Outdoor
    • London Life
      • Foodie London
      • Visiting London – Five Must Do Sights
      • Visiting London – London Travel Tips
    • Balcony Gardening
  • Featured
    • Books
    • Home Delivery
    • Recipe Kits
    • Giveaways
  • Recipes
    • Meat
    • Soups
    • Lunch
    • Starters
    • Mains
    • Sides
    • Desserts
    • Cakes and Sweets
    • 5:2 Diet Recipes
    • Fish and Shellfish
    • Meat
    • Poultry
    • Vegetarian
  • Restaurants
    • Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia
    • Bermondsey, Borough and London Bridge
    • Chelsea
    • Camden
    • City of London
    • Clerkenwell
    • Covent Garden
    • Docklands
    • East London
    • Kings Cross
    • Knightsbridge
    • Kings Cross
    • Kensington
    • Marylebone
    • Mayfair
    • Oxford Circus
    • Oxford Circus
    • Paddington
    • St James
    • Soho
    • South Bank
    • South London
    • The Strand and Embankment
    • North London
    • Victoria and Pimlico
    • West London
    • Out of London
    • Miscellaneous
  • Travel UK
  • Travel Europe
    • Belgium
    • Croatia
    • Czech Republic
    • First Visit
      • Bulgaria
      • Netherlands
      • Poland
      • Romania
      • Slovenia
    • France
    • Germany
    • Greece
    • Italy
      • Sicily
    • Ireland
    • Portugal
    • Spain
    • UK
  • Travel Other
    • Caribbean Travel
      • Antigua
      • Barbados
      • Grenada
      • St Lucia
    • Ecuador
    • Egypt
    • India
    • Qatar
    • Mexico
    • Oman
    • Rodrigues and Mauritius
    • Sri Lanka
    • USA

London Unattached - Luxury Mid-Life London Lifestyle

Luxury London Lifestyle for mid-life Metropolitans - food, travel, restaurant reviews - London Unattached

You are here: Home / Travel / Europe / Italy / There’s More Olive Oil in Puglia

There’s More Olive Oil in Puglia

August 3, 2014 by Fiona Maclean 11 Comments

Tweet
Pin
Share
Flip
Share

Last Updated on August 9, 2014 by Fiona Maclean

The Olive Oil of Puglia:

An Italian chef once remarked to me that food in Italy is effectively tribal.  From village to village, you’ll find claims that ‘the best’ or ‘the authentic’ pasta, ragu, cold meats, olive oil and even honey is found ONLY in that particular place.  So, a trip to Puglia visiting a selection of masserie was bound to result in a level of competitiveness that could only serve to delight the taste-buds but would inevitably completely destroy any intention of dieting.

Antipasti Selection Puglia_edited-1

Firstly we discover that a meal in Puglia starts with a table full of antipasti.  It looks like a meal in itself.  Even tasting a tiny portion of every dish (obviously essential, for the sake of comparing the buratta), by the time we’ve tried fifteen to twenty dishes we are all full. The montage shows just a few from one meal.  An assortment of cheeses, cold meats, vegetable dishes and a whole range of hot morsels from arancini through to deep fried courgette flowers

Secondly, we learn that the best olive oil in Italy comes not from Tuscany, but from Puglia.  Now, clearly this is rather subjective, but when even the Italian food writer from Rome is backing Puglia  I begin to think there may be some truth in that statement.  Caveat emptor though if you chose to visit and buy, apparently the term ‘product of’ simply means ‘bottled in’ – a good local olive oil will be labelled ‘produced and bottled’.

Masseria Il Frantolio

Arriving outside Masseria Il Frantolio, if I’m honest, I rather thought there was little to learn.  Of course, during our tour I was proved very much wrong.  What olive oil production I had seen in Tuscany was fascinating.  A mixture of ancient and modern techniques, for the most part on a co-operative basis and with little finesse.  As it turned out a very good grounding for what I learned now in the area of Italy that produces around a third of the Country’s olive oil production (ten times that of Tuscany).

Masseria il frantolio passion

Here, at Il Frantolio, twenty-five varieties of olives are cultivated, including the most commonly used in Puglia, the largest producer of olive oil in Italy; Ogliarola, Nardo, Cerasola, Fasola and Leucocarpa, there are also two varieties of wild olive trees  on the estate – harvested to use in special blends of oil. All of the olives are picked by hand, from October to December to ensure the finest quality. Then, once picked, all processing happens within twelve hours – any delay can result in bitterness or moulds on the olives which will spoil the olive oil. Unlike many olive oil producers, here only olives grown on the estate are processed to ensure that tree to press time is always minimal and quality always unquestionable. Although Il Frantolio as it now exists is well established (the family started producing oil in 1917) the majority of the trees pre-date the oil business and are between 100 and 200 years old, though there’s one ancient tree that has been around for over 1,100 years. This is the land of Olives.  The estate is in part organic and is gradually moving to an entirely organic system of cultivation.

Olive Oil production Masseria Frantolio

The Masseria has two methods of producing cold press olive oil, the first using a traditional press, the second using a double centrifuge.

And, production methods vary still more; Il Frantolio has a few special techniques to create a range of distinctive premium extra virgin olive oil.   ‘Lacrima’  for example, uses seven different types of olives – including a white olive originally from Israel and a local wild olive.  The exact blend is, of course, a closely guarded family secret.  Once the olives are crushed, oil is produced by making small holes in the paste which are allowed to collect oil for just 30 minutes, the ‘tears’.  Normally 100kg of olives will produce between 12 and 16 litres of olive oil, but using this technique the yield from 100kg is just 1 litre of olive oil.

Necttare, another premium product is produced from olives picked just from the top of the tree, so more exposed to the sun and wind.  Again it is produced using the traditional press. The result is a sweet, delicate oil that I could imagine dressing a green salad without the need for lemon or balsamic.

Masseria Il Frantolio - the centrifugal press

The centrifugal method is used to process around 70% of the olives, although the machinery is still capable of producing a variety of olive oil depending on whether the olives are de-stoned or not and by flavouring the oils, adding fresh orange, lemon or herbs during the processing.

Mechanised Stoning of Olives - Masseria Frantolio 2

Once extracted, the oils are stored in a constant temperature (between 14 and 16C) below ground level.  They are kept sealed and in the dark until they are ready to be bottled and sold.

Masseria Il Frantolio - oils

Moving on to taste some of the oils we are taught how best to release the flavours of the olive oil by warming it gently in the palms of our hands before swirling it round in the mouth.  It is remarkably pleasant, though I don’t normally ‘drink’ olive oil.  The pretty blue jar in the photo is a traditional judging cup – designed to ensure that neither the colour nor the opaqueness of the oil would affect scoring.  We learn that there are many things which influence the taste of the oil – from the terroir and climate through to altitude, time of harvest, variety of olive and whether or not leaves and stones are allowed to remain in the process.

Masseria Il Frantolio - tasting

But, regardless of the flavour profile there are certain things which mark a good Extra Virgin Olive Oil.  A spicy taste is an indication of too young an olive and a good olive oil will leave your mouth clean.

All the oils produced on the Masseria are part of the TriSole range.  The name, from the traditional raffia filters that are still used as a filter for cold pressed olive oil in Puglia, is a tribute to rural history and traditions of the area.

Masseria Il Frantolio donkeys

I’m lucky enough to have a bottle of the lacrima to use at home.  It will find its way into dressings and perhaps onto good artisan bread.  I most certainly won’t be using it to cook, although I’ve learnt that despite advice to the contrary it is perfectly acceptable and even desirable to fry with olive oil because it has a very high burn point.  But of course, heating the oil would change the flavour profile.  And, I’m hoping that a few drops will take me right back to Puglia.

Old equipment at Masseria Il Frantolio

With many thanks to Le masserie didattiche for hosting this trip and to Masseria Il Frantolio for the tour of their oil production

Filed Under: Italy, Travel Tagged With: Masseria, olive oil, Puglia

About Fiona Maclean

London based freelance writer and marketing consultant. I edit London-Unattached.com and write for a number of other publications. With a music degree and a background in marketing across many sectors, my passions include all types of music, food, restaurants, wine and travel

Comments

  1. Jane Willis says

    February 1, 2018 at 7:38 am

    I’ve not tried olive oil from Puglia, I’d been told the best came from Tuscany, although I suspect my information was biased as I was in Tuscany at the time and talking to a Tuscan chef on an olive growing estate

    Reply
  2. Mary @ Green Global Travel says

    August 5, 2014 at 7:53 pm

    Wow, this sounds like an amazing trip! Crazy how old the olive trees can get, and that’s great they’re going forward in becoming fully organic! Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
    • Fiona Maclean says

      August 6, 2014 at 8:41 pm

      There were lots of interesting ‘Green’ initiatives in Puglia Mary – including a Biogas dome and an eco swimming pool…

      Reply
  3. Jennifer says

    August 5, 2014 at 6:27 pm

    I’m Italian (grandparents came from southern Italy) and admittedly I didn’t know much about Italian food until I moved to Italy. What I knew is the food of the south that immigrants brought with them to America. Now that I live in the north, I’ve learned so much about how much food is regional and some dishes that we think are Italian simply aren’t at all.

    I haven’t tried olive oil from Puglia, but my favorite is an olive oil produced in Lake Garda. So good!

    Reply
  4. Barbara Weibel says

    August 5, 2014 at 1:58 am

    Had to chuckle at this. I just returned from Sorrento and producers there insisted that the finest olive oil in the country comes from Catania. A few weeks later, in Sicily, it was impressed upon me that the best olive oil in Italy is from Sicily.

    Reply
    • Fiona Maclean says

      August 5, 2014 at 7:25 am

      LOL yes, I’ve been to Sicily on a food trip and had much the same. That said, I think the ‘drier’ south may just be better for olive oil production simply because the climate is more suitable…(both puglia and sicily)

      Reply
  5. BeautifulPuglia says

    August 4, 2014 at 8:10 pm

    Beautiful article about an amazing experience. We know that Masseria very well, I took a tour myself. Fantastic way of looking at how they make olive oil!

    Reply
  6. Michelle Murray says

    August 4, 2014 at 4:03 am

    I didn’t realise there was so much to know about Olive oil

    Reply
  7. Stevie Wilson says

    August 3, 2014 at 9:37 pm

    this looks so fascinating. Did you come home with a special olive oil or the taste for a specific presentation?
    RECIPES?

    Reply
    • Fiona Maclean says

      August 3, 2014 at 10:25 pm

      I came home with a special bottle of the lacrema oil…

      Reply
  8. Emma says

    August 3, 2014 at 2:04 pm

    Wow, this was really interesting! Who knew there was so much to know about oils?!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Follow Us

  • Bloglovin
  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • StumbleUpon
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter

About London-Unattached

  • About Fiona Maclean
    • Writing for Other Publications
  • Enquiries/PR
  • Links to Other Sites
  • London Unattached Contributors
  • London Unattached Privacy Policy
  • Media Pack
  • Newsletter
  • Travel Bloggers Influencer Network

Recently Published

  • Venison Casserole – Spiced Venison in Ale
  • Banquist sprinkles Michelin stardust on your cooking
  • Sherlock Holmes: An Online Adventure – Review
Looking for more recipes? Check out my new site, The Frugal Flexitarian, for easy, cost effective recipes to enjoy at home.
Find My 5:2 Diet Recipes quickly and easily

London Unattached Newsletter

Sign up for our newsletter here. We promise not to spam - and you can unsubscribe at any time

Search London Unattached


Find Us

blogl
VuelioTop10Badge2020

Copyright © 2021 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in