Lucca – Frantoio La Visona
After a few false starts we stopped at a small local establishment that presses their own olives to sell to local clientele and those of a collective of 120 or so small neighboring farms. It is located in the Camelia neighborhood, an area with extremely steep hills where olive trees are planted on narrow steps up the hillsides. The (retired) owner still uses old-fashioned stone wheels that travel around and around over the crushed olives. The mash is filtered through fiber mats (synthetic now, once raw wool) to remove solids and the result is spun quickly in a centrifuge to separate the oil from any water. We did an oil tasting, comparing the light oil of Lucca to the stronger oil of Sicily (it smelled of tomatoes and artichokes). Things to look for: virgin, cold press, 100% (not mixed with chemically extracted oil from the left-over mash), and cloudy rather than clear (too much filtering reduces the flavor).
After a few false starts we stopped at a small local establishment that presses their own olives to sell to local clientele and those of a collective of 120 or so small neighboring farms. It is located in the Camelia neighborhood, an area with extremely steep hills where olive trees are planted on narrow steps up the hillsides. The (retired) owner still uses old-fashioned stone wheels that travel around and around over the crushed olives. The mash is filtered through fiber mats (synthetic now, once raw wool) to remove solids and the result is spun quickly in a centrifuge to separate the oil from any water. We did an oil tasting, comparing the light oil of Lucca to the stronger oil of Sicily (it smelled of tomatoes and artichokes). Things to look for: virgin, cold press, 100% (not mixed with chemically extracted oil from the left-over mash), and cloudy rather than clear (too much filtering reduces the flavor).
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