The Privilege of Beauty and Quality: The Olive Tree and Extra Virgin Olive Oil in Umbria
The qualification of production is no longer used as a means of automatically obtaining a price increase. The olive tree carries landscape implications that contribute greatly to the region’s enhancement.
Green heart of Italy, a crossroads and marvellous intersection of sky, architecture, olive trees and vineyards, Umbria represents, even for those who cannot see beyond the surface, the extreme harmony to which all categories of things, both material and spiritual, aspire and tend; and if on one hand it is the retina that first captures the beauty of this land, on the other it is surely our soul, understood in a secular sense, that first enjoys the atmosphere breathed in these territories.
Umbria therefore, if on one hand is defined as the “Land of Saints,” is on the other also the Land of Vinsanto and Sacra(ntini) and of a whole series of typical and gastronomic products that bind together, in an indissoluble way and without contradictions or disharmony, two categories by definition contrasting and opposite: spirit and matter. And the product that best summarizes, ideally, this dual and universal identity is certainly extra virgin olive oil, linked on the one hand to a great economic value (much higher than average national prices), but on the other far more linked to a thousand symbols and metaphors; so much so that if, in general, we can define olive tree and oil as synonyms of Peace, in Umbria they also become even a symbol of war; the “Torre dell’olio” in Spoleto is so called because, legend has it, from its height, barricaded within it, the people of Spoleto threw boiling oil to fight Hannibal the Carthaginian during his passage through the city.
Highly symbolic and deserving particular emphasis, in Umbria there is also another agri-food culture: that of the Pig.
It is no coincidence that when one wants to elevate the status of a simple butcher, he is called a norcino. Umbria is therefore the hinge between the two great classes of fats that have represented and still represent the basis of nutrition and taste throughout the Mediterranean and Europe. On one side the vegetable fat symbol of Mediterranean civilization: olive oil.
On the other side the animal fat symbol of Central European tradition: the pig; and it is truly a hinge because within just a few kilometers we find the two capitals of the two fats: Spoleto and Norcia.
Let us now analyze the more strictly agronomic aspect of the Umbrian olive-growing context.
Unique, among the most significant Italian olive-growing regions, in not being washed by the sea, Umbria presents other defining homogeneities: the hill is the prevailing geomorphological form and all its soils, except the Orvieto cliff, are of sedimentary origin.
In all Umbrian olive groves one cultivar is almost always present and decisive: Moraiolo.
These are the premises that allowed the European Community, in 1997, to recognize the “DOP Umbria” extra virgin olive oil, with the boundaries of the Denomination coinciding with those of the Region.
The Protected Designation of Origin for an agri-food product is essentially this: “typicality,” that is, flavors and aromas that are different, well-defined and recognizable, within carefully circumscribed territories.
However, it should not be underestimated that olive growing has always had considerable importance not only for economic implications, but also social, environmental and landscape ones.
The olive tree, in fact, cultivated since Etruscan times, in addition to representing a significant source of income for many farms, also has landscape effects that greatly contribute to regional enhancement. This favorable context, combined with the relevant fact that Umbrian oil has always stood out for typicity and quality, has created a favorable situation that has allowed Umbrian oil over time to achieve prices significantly higher than the average of other Italian oils.
In the Umbrian production context therefore the words typicity and quality are inseparably linked.
The qualification of production is therefore no longer used as a means to automatically obtain a price increase, but rather, in a broader context, this “total and ideal quality” is used as an instrument of commercial relations, aimed at establishing stable and lasting preferences that consolidate market positions achieved. This is, in this case, also a cultural operation, which is carried out through information and awareness of operators and consumers and which shifts the exclusive reference from product quality to system quality.
Beauty that slowly emerges from things
denies itself to those who pass quickly.
I saw Umbria in September, asleep in the silence still
burning of the landscape.
I saw her in April in her glorious awakening.
Smiling or tired, her image seemed the same to me…
(René Schneider, L’Ombre — l’âme des cités et des paysages, Paris 1905)
