Garantito IGP: Stefano's Oil and The "Crazy Idea"

This time Carlo Macchi takes the stand:

Valpolicella, three days of tastings, more than 200 Amaroni and Valpolicella Ripasso wines to judge. Obviously, you also organize a few afternoon cellar visits, the problem being that over the years you've visited and revisited most everyone, and there's not much new to discover. Glancing over last year's results, I note a winemaker I don't know yet. We ask the folks at the Valpolicella Consorzio to make the appointment; they're happy to do so and add, "Taste their oil. It's great!" The director of the Consorzio gives us the same advice, as do two other winemakers we visit.

While it's raining cats and dogs, I make the crazy decision to dedicate our visit primarily to the oil. For a Tuscan, who has in his X chromosome the X of eXtravirgin olive oil, and grew up in the stomping grounds of the Leccino, Frantoio and Moraiolo cultivars, to visit the cellars of a Valpolicella winery and devote most of the time to an oil born of the "renowned" Grignano and Casaliva cultivars is plain crazy.

And here we are, on a dark and stormy night, raining questions upon Stefano Pizzighella, who -- truth be told -- was hoping for this. While he talks about his olives, planted on the hills of the Mezzane area (hills he has wandered for years, hunting hare, wild boar and deer), he shows us his press, where the olives picked during the day are pressed under nitrogen. The production is so limited that he's going to have to replace the new ultramodern filtration unit because it's too large, going back to the old one, little bigger than a kitchen stool. While the winds howl and buffet outside Stefano stops being surprised at the barrage of queries on pitting, acidity, storage, decanter use, and so on, and opens up.

It was an extraordinary evening, and the crazy idea of talking about oil in the Valpolicella turned out to be one of the best I've had in a long time.

Not that the wines Stefano and his wife, Giulietta dal Bosco, make under the Le Guaite label aren't good, quite the contrary! But to taste oils that are more than a year old and still display clean artichoke (that's an exclusively Tuscan aroma!!! The Tuscanocentric part of my personality cried), freshly cut grass, fig leaves, and so on is without doubt fascinating. Tuscan that I am, I couldn't help but ask the question that all extravirgin olive oil producers fear to ask themselves: "Considering that if all goes really well 100 kilos of olives will yield 12 kilos of oil, or perhaps more probably 6-7, what are your costs?"

This is the breakpoint for quality extravirgin olive oil, the oil people say they want but then find too expensive. Stefano's reply, "around 45-50 Euros," leads us to a market that accepts only on paper the true costs of great oils, be they Tuscan or from the Veneto. Because Stefano's oils are great, regardless of whether one is speaking of oils from pitted olives, from 100% Grignano, or his blend, which at present is as shut tight as a newly bottled Amarone.

Its color, a beautiful slightly cloudy emerald green (he filters his oils immediately, but this had not yet been filtered the second time), and it's fresh, developing chlorophyll aromas give an indication of what the future, say three months from now, will hold.

I of course couldn't help but buy a bottle (at 12.5 Euros for a 750 ml bottle it's not even expensive), to follow its development over the next few months. And in the meantime, I slathered last year's oil, which is still excellent, over bread and dipped raw vegetables into it.

In short, between tasting oil and other things (Ripasso, Superiore, Amarone, Recioto), the hours between 7 and midnight passed in a flash, leaving us with the problem of how to get into the car, burdened as we were by "small but repeated" potions of stewed wild boar, soppressa (the classic salami of the Veneto), and torta sbrisolona.

If the police had stopped me, they would have in any case found more olive oil than wine in my blood. After all, when a "crazy idea" brings you to a "happily crazy" maker of olive oil and wine, this is the least that can happen.

Azienda Agricola Sisure
Di Pizzighella Stefano
Via Capovilla 10/A
Mezzane di Sopra (VR)
Tel-fax 0458880396
www.sisure.it
info AT sisure DOT it


Published Simultaneously by IGP, I Giovani Promettenti.

We Are:
Carlo Macchi
Kyle Phillips
Luciano Pignataro
Roberto Giuliani
Stefano Tesi

GARANTITO IGP. Rough, and Gentle. Like Oil.

This time Stefano Tesi takes the stand:



There's a Tuscan slang word, a classic term used to descibe a person who is pleasantly irascible and disenchanted, deft and fun in his contrariness, always somewhat arisen from the wrong side of the bed, but never really unpleasant: Scoglionato.

This is perhaps the best adjective with which to describe, at first at least, someone like Giancarlo Giannini, olive oil maker in Vitiano, not far from Castiglion Fiorentino in the Province of Arezzo. It's up to you to decided if he was born this way or became so because of the profession he chose. A profession that, I add, is perfect for "exasperating" the professional.

The competence and passion with which he spoke of oil (and not just his, a good sign!) and the olive oil business sin general made a good impression upon me from the outset.

But I wasn't familiar with the company. I tasted his oil rather carelessly, but snapped to attention, gathered some samples without saying much else, took them home and tasted them following the textbook rules. And finding my initial impressions confirmed.

By now convinced, yesterday morning bright and early I opened a 10-cc mini-can (a parenthesis; though critics don't like them and some DOP regulations, for example that of Chianti Classico, forbid them, I find these containers to be practical, fun, and even elegant) of "Poggio al Vento" and tasted it thoroughly once again. My positive impressions multiplied.

On the nose it displays beautiful balance, with strong fruit at the outset followed by grassy notes that increase, balancing the fruit but never becoming predominant; they confer a feeling of fragrance and liveliness, and round in the finish, becoming almost sweet, without oversaturating the nostrils or giving those vaguely woody sensations typical of Tuscan extravirgin oils.

On the palate the impressions of roundness and balance continue, expanding continuing at length with an interweaving of sweetness and slight deft bitterness, which only after many seconds prevails, bringing a feeling of freshness that brings to mind, say, freshly cut radicchio.

No defects, obviously. To the contrary a general richness and pleasant feelings that remain on the palate for many minutes, with a nice ripe fruit finish that never descends into pungency.

Excellent, in short. There was enough to want to know more, so I did.

This is Toscana IGP Extravirgin oil; it's organic (certified by Suolo & Salute), and is pressed from Moraiolo, Frantoio, Leccino, Raggiale, and about 15% other cultivars, harvested by hand from 30 hectares (about 75 acres) of proprietary terraced olive groves at elevations between 300 and 600 meters in the Communes of Arezzo and Castiglion Fiorentino. The groves, Giovanni says, are fertilized with bi-annual green manuring with no use of chemicals. The olives are pressed in the company's press, a continuous cycle Alfa Laval. Production is on the order of 150 quintals per year. And in 2011 he came in second at 'Ercole Olivario an was awarded a "Gran Menzione" at Sol di Verona.

It's simple up to here. Then you look at the can on the table and read, "Poggio al Vento." Fine. However, immediately thereafter you see a picture of Gianni with a bottle of extravirgin olive oil labeled "Vipiano" in his hand. You visit the site and discover the farm is located in Vitiano, with a T, and are totally confused. So you ask Giancarlo.

"It's easy," says he. "The farm is called Vitiano, but we couldn't call the oil Vitiano because Vitiano is also a place name and the regulations prohibit the use of place names. The easiest solution seemed to be changing a consonant, so the name sounds almost the same." Ah. And Poggio al Vento? "The same oil, with a different label. I've got five or six different labels," he says with a grin. Why? Doesn't that create confusion? "It's a solution," he says. We export to Germany, Switzerland, the US, Denmark, Japan, Belgium and Holland. They all wanted exclusivity, and I didn't know what to do. So to give them their exclusives I came up with different names. The same thing happens here in Arezzo, every shopkeeper wanted to be the only one with my oil on his shelves -- no competition that way. So I satisfied them; different labels but the oil is all the same."

Pragmatism, Arezzo Style.

If you were looking to understand the Tuscan term "scoglionato," now you know.

Those who go directly to the press can purchase Gianni's oil (you pick the label) for 6.5 Euros per half-liter bottle, or 12 for a full liter.

Azienda Agraria e Frantoio Giancarlo Giannini
Località Vitiano 229, 52100 Arezzo
Tel 0575/979599 - cell. 335/333125 - fax 0575/97096

Published Simultaneously by IGP, I Giovani Promettenti.


We Are:
Carlo Macchi
Kyle Phillips
Luciano Pignataro
Roberto Giuliani
Stefano Tesi