Umbria
Umbria is Italy’s most mysterious region. Home of the ancient Etruscans, a civilization that flourished in the shadows of its many hills. With no coastline, surrounded by mountains, Umbria was always hard to reach.
The hills made farming difficult, but Umbrians – shadow people, literally – learned to manage the land despite its uneven terrain, cold winters, and harsh winds. Umbria doesn’t look like the rest of Italy. It’s wilder. Rougher. So are its people, and so are its farms.
Produce grown in these harsh conditions can be extraordinary. Apples, cherries, and apricots are the world’s best, when they survive. Despite the uncertainty, Umbrians grow them, but rarely exclusively. Almost everyone keeps an olive grove, because the varietals planted in Umbria thrive despite the weather. Some years are better than others, but no one can remember a catastrophic season.
Most olive groves are planted on hills. This makes picking the olives difficult, but the slope prevents water from stagnating and ruining the trees.
Olive oil
Characteristics
Umbrians produce all types and quality of oil. Large producers send enormous quantities throughout Italy and the world. Their product is good by international standards, but the locals like to tell visitors that “they wouldn’t put it in their car.”
The highest quality oil is made by families, from family-owned trees, for their family. Any oil that they can’t consume is sold, usually to the mill. This is the only olive oil we sell.
Umbrian Gold olive oil is “extra virgin”, “cold pressed” and “bio” by default. Most groves are maintained by a single person who’s been doing it for decades. When it’s time to pick the olives, the whole family helps.
Our oil is spicy and full-bodied. People who try it for the first time say that it’s unlike any olive oil they’ve had before. It’s not another level, it’s another category.
Tasting Notes for Martani 2023
Suggested pairings:
Family Oil
When we talk about Umbrian olive oil, we only mean the highest quality family-produced product. Umbrians pick their olives early. When they are beaten off the trees they tend towards green, not black. Modern harvesting techniques don’t work. You can’t shake olives off a tree unless they’re ripe, which is too late for great oil. At the start of the season the oil is green, not yellow. Even the latest oil has a green tinge to it.
Olio Nuovo
Freshly-pressed early season oil is called “olio nuovo”, new oil.
Unlike wine which can improve with age, oil deteriorates with time. Oil lasts a year.
Olio nuovo is spicy and well-structured. Its flavors are easily distinguishable.
After a month it mellows noticeably. Flavors blend and accents are less sharp, but the oil’s structure is still evident. This is its noble period. After a year, the structure has all but disappeared. Some Umbrians will continue using it for cooking but, as a condiment it will immediately be replaced by the next vintage.
You’ll be shocked to see how old oil sold in supermarkets tends to be. Worse, many is produced from olives shipped from multiple countries, which means they are far from fresh when they reach the mill. Our olives are typically pressed within 48 hours of being picked.
Families
We have met most of the families that have contributed olives to this vintage. Some groves are as small as 25 trees, some as big as 350. By any standard, the big groves are small!Groves that are producing top-quality olives today were planted at least two generations ago. Olive trees can live to 500 years, but trees that old are rare in Umbria due to frequent seismic activity.
Only one generation ago olives were picked by hand, with ladders and baskets. Today, we use nets and beaters powered by compressed air or batterie. It is still painstaking work. The season starts in mid-October and runs to mid-November. During that month the weather can change from hot and dry to cold and rainy, almost overnight.
