Our olives take one: the busa

Actually, just one of the busa varieties: the busa femmina di Dignano, or female busa. Big, rounded and meaty, this olive variety is native from our very town of Dignano.

Her tree is like the oil she produces: benign, not much wild, and somewhat delicate. Anyway, I think it may be better to leave aside the agricultural details and pass on to what you might find more interesting: her oil.

It does not exceed in bitterness, spiciness or flavors, nor does it have an electric green colour like some of its peers, but is a perfect match for any kind of delicate dishes. It does not impone itself on the tastes, but rather accompany them and enhance them in a diminutive, understated way. In few words, if you need the double bass of the olive oils, with the busa you can't go wrong!

Art, kids & Cadenela olive oil

One may find the combination of art and agriculture somewhat strange, but food has always found its place in art, either on canvas or in other unedible forms. Remember highschool art lessons, and renaissance's Giuseppe Arcimboldo?

There are many more, both contemporary and distant in time that have found inspiration in food, one way or the other. Now, you may wonder why this introduction in our, mostly down-to-earth (quite literally) blog: because the olive tree, and its oil, inspires us. It takes one back to basic beauty, to natural harmony, to higher connections the olive oil has always bridged for humans.

Enter Valter Černeka and his art. Primarily a sculptor, but otherwise an artist tout court, Valter pursues an impressive range of activities, not last working with children and developing the innate creativity of our younger ones. Since we both share a penchant for the olive tree, it came quite natural to embark on a project we are now proud to present you: the Cadenela organic olive oil, especially for our kids.

For kids you may ask? Yes, since the quest for high quality olive oil often leaves the youngest a bit wanting, due to the bitterness and spicy tastes we tend to associate with such products. Obviously with time kids begin to appreciate those qualities, but why not produce a top olive oil, just milder, and present it properly to them? That was the idea we developed and which has been visually translated, with the invaluable input and start idea by our 5 year old daughter Elena :-).

A limited batch of 100 bottles has been made this year, so hurry up and check here whether you can still grab one for your little ones!

Here's a slideshow of some details of Valter's and our work:

Habemus logo! And other news

As the regular readers of this blog may have noticed, Cadenela got a refreshed look and a new logo! We're still working on a completely new dress but could not resist in sharing a bit of our new looks... To be honest, I could not resist and had to show it off even in the orchards - at least the olives are now properly introduced to the (most probably lost) mountain bikers that wander in the area!

Guess who's the boss out of the two?

But hey, we did not stop there - we're on the way to have the first labelled bottles travel to their new homes and tables! It's quite a small batch so if you're interested do let us know and become one of the first to taste our multi-golden-medal-organic EVOO. It might sound complicated, but it's actually just a very good olive oil (with a lot of artichoke and green pepper tastes developing lately) that gives its best on food with some character (red meat, cheese, prosciutto...). But your mileage may vary, as my daughter likes it best raw, on a slice of bread...

To sum it up,we're quite proud of the work we've done with Katja, and if you have to work on your visual identity we can only recommend her for the effort put in our project! Take a look here , you got all the necessary details to contact her.

Otherwise, we've got a lot of work out there, as the constant rain makes our orchards look more like the Serengeti during the rainy season than anything else - this year is an explosion of every single shade of green one could think of, beautiful to the eye but quite tiresome to the other body parts...

Everywhere...

Will be back soon!

ONAOO oil tasting crash course

In addition to being host to our pruning course, ONAOO kindly saved the last day, otherwise lost to the rain, by organizing a quick olive oil tasting for us.

That's how it started...

We got on Skype the ONAOO panel leader, Mr.Scoccia, to guide us through a swift voyage around the world in about fifteen monovarietal oils: from Sicily to Umbria, passing by Australia, Chile and the southern coasts of the Mediterranean.

And here's how it ended!

We tasted so many different characters, even between the same variety (coming from two different continents though). One of the biggest surprises (for me at least) was tasting a monocultivar oil made of picual for the first time - that was a Proust moment! As the madeleine for the caracter of In search of the lost time, the picual brought back to my memories all that flat supermarket oils of days gone by (for me at least)...

Looking forward, getting a grip on tasting and blending is the next big step needed to elevate our products a step further, and I am quite certain about where a fair bit of knowledge lies. Imperia, see you soon!

Why (and which) olive oil is good for you

The fact that olive oil (the extra vergine, not the raffinated ones!) is, except from being tasty and improving your cuisine,  a fantastic source of healthy substances is quite known - what is not quite so known is that different varieties (cultivars) vastly vary in their properties.

Different shapes, different taste, but also different inherent qualities!

 I had the pleasure of attending recently to a lecture about such variances which is now available on the web (for the technically inclined readers, the link is at the bottom of this post). I'll try to sum up the study which I think highlights a number of facts the consumer should be aware of.

For starters, some of the most important healthy properties of the extra vergine are:
- the high level of unsaturated fatty acids (which are good for you because of their effects on LDL cholesterol, in primis)
- again, the high level of alpha tocopherol, or vitamin E (antioxidant par excellence)
- polyphenols (again, antioxydants and antiinflammatories)

Now, the study takes in consideration four diffent cultivars: one introduced (the Leccino), and three autochtonous cultivars (Buza, Bianchera and Rossignola). Why exactly those varieties? The Leccino because of its popularity as a variety, whilst the three locals are also well spread in the region amongst producers. The Leccino and the Buza give gentler oils (say a chardonnay), whilst the Bianchera and Rossignola are oils with a kick (syrah?) Oh, thanks for asking - all of them are well represented in our groves...

Now, what are the findings? Speaking of oleic acid, all the varieties had more than 75%, with a total of average 85% of unsaturated fatty acids, which is well above regulation requirements from health authorities to state the health benefits of its consumation.

And now the interesting bits: should you wish for a higher content of vitamin E, go for Leccino or Rossignola, with the Buza in a honorable and close third place. The Bianchera is well behind the first three, but still above health requirements for foods to be labelled as natural source of vitamin E.

Author: O.Koprivnjak et al, 2012

Our vitamin E winner - the Leccino!

 If polyphenols are what you are after, the Bianchera is the clear winner, with values well above the other contesters - notwithstanding this fact, all of them are again well above regulations requirements for being labelled as natural source of antioxydants. I'd like to give you a tip here: check whether the groves your olive oil comes from are irrigated, and if so there is no contest at all - the sometimes high polyphenols level in the other three varieties are almost certainly the consequence of a stressful, dry year.

Author: O.Koprivnjak et al, 2012

Kicking not only in taste, but in polyphenols too...

 So, next time you choose a single variety olive oil, you may want to think about the specific health benefits in addition to the diffent tastes they have!

Part of the data for this post was sourced from an article by O.Koprivnjak et al, "Characteristics of Nutritive Value of Virgin Olive Oils from Buža, Istarska bjelica, Leccino and Rosulja Cultivars", 2012, which can be found here.