Olive oil, the Tuscan life elixir
A hundred varieties to make your life run smoothly

Olive oil in Tuscany is like wine in France . The farmer treats his ‘Tuscan fluent gold' with the same care he handles his grapes. The result is that this olive oil is the best in the world, according to the proud Tuscans. Palmiro, a local olive peasant of Torrita shares the same opinion. The harvest wasn't one of the best, but the olive oil itself was of a fine quality. The result was an expensive oil.

Wild olives thrive in Tuscany but for the production of oil only the cultivated ones are used. In Tuscany there are hundreds of varieties. Three major groups can be distinguished: small olives to make oil from; medium olives that are picked unripe and green, or ripe black ones; olives without a characteristic taste that are fit for consumption and oil.

Lampante
Oil can be classified along its price, determined by its quality. The result of the first pressing of the olives is the vergine or the fine extra vergine. The last one has the highest quality and has a fruity flavour although the vergine is also of a fine grade. The lampante is chemically manipulated after the first pressing in order to refine the oil. You can find this lampante oil in an ordinary supermarket. This oil is usually gained mechanically, a cheaper way than by hand. This lampante oil can be used for cooking but is no guarantee for a culinary surplus value.

Like wine, olive oil is protected by DOC-labels to guarantee the quality of the different kinds of Tuscan oil. The oil is more sensitive than wine; it absorbs scents and for that reason it isn't preferable to preserve the oil close to garlic or onions. Within the year a great part of the taste of the oil gets lost and it turns rancid.

Spicy
Three major different kinds of tastes can be distinguished. The fruity oil has the caracteristic taste of the olive. The oil is derived from healthy and fresh fruit; in nose or mouth you'll become aware of the whole taste. The bitter tasting oil is distracted from green, not yet fully mature olives, that after the picking are cleaned with hot water. The spicy oil has no specific scent but a subtile flavour and a typical after-taste.

Each region has its own olive oil with its own specific taste. In Tuscany the oil is derived from green olives and it has a strong taste. The differences lie in the way how olives are cultivated, but also climate factors and the processing of olives play an important role. The olives endure night frost, but in heavy cold during the flourishing period, the butts freeze and part of the harvest gets lost and so the prizes raise.

An olive exists 15 to 30% out of oil, and contains a lot of vitamines and fatty acids. But how does the processing work? After the cleaning, they are processed from olive to paste/pulp in a pressing machine. Then, the water particles and the fat elements are parted from each other, so that only the sansa (olive pulp) and oil remains. The oil is classified, along its quality. The sansa is refined again to produce olio lampante.

More about the olive:
Olive oil, the Tuscan life elixir
Tasting olive oil

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- This site was realised thanks to the co-operation between the town council and the inhabitants of Torrita di Siena and ten graduated students 2004 from the “Katholieke Hogeschool Mechelen”, Belgium, department communication science, campus De Ham. - © Torrita di Siena