Brescia Olive Oil Harvest Wraps Up with High-Quality, DOP Certification Aim
The mills for pressing olives produced on the Brescia side of Garda have completed their work, and now all the extra virgin olive oil is being prepared for sale.
Olive harvest and production
As Gianfranco Comincioli (former president of Aipol and producer in Puegnago, where he also serves as mayor) explained to us, it was a good year, though not among the best in terms of yield.
“The fault lies with the olive fly, which appeared sporadically around the lakeside areas, and also with the hailstorms that suddenly lowered temperatures towards the end of September. Nevertheless, all the oil classified as extra virgin, as it has an acidity that does not exceed one degree—that is, the limit for remaining classified as extra virgin,” he said.
In some areas, oil with a maximum acidity of 0.50 was obtained, with averages elsewhere ranging from 0.20 to 0.4%. It should be noted that in the Valtenesi area, particularly, many new olive trees have been recently planted and are beginning to produce, so the quantity remains high even in less favorable seasons.
Distribution and harvest of olives
The olive trees in our province have reached a total of 350,000, of which 300,000 are located in the Garda bresciano area, which annually produces over 5,000 quintals of oil, while around 1,000 quintals are produced near Lake Iseo.
According to data provided by Aipol, chaired by Giovanni Mazzoldi, 80% of all Lombardy’s olive oil comes from olive groves on the Brescia side of Lake Garda. This also makes it a significant and important economic entity.
In Puegnago, about twenty farms have voluntarily joined forces since 1984 and supply olives from Nicola Morani to Polpenazze, where a traditional mill with granite rollers for cold processing operates. Only these producers have brought roughly 1,000 quintals of olives to the mill.
Processing capacity and quality
In San Felice del Benaco, the “La Verità” Cooperative includes 220 producing members, who delivered a total of 3,700 quintals of olives to its state-of-the-art large facility.
The cooperative’s president (who also leads Aipol and the Olive Oil Consortium of Garda bresciano), Giovanni Mazzoldi, states that the number of olives on the trees was above average, but the yield was lower than last year by three kilograms per quintal: in practice, a quintal of olives in the previous harvest produced 16 kilograms of oil, whereas this year’s yield was 13 kilograms.
“Nevertheless, it is high-quality oil that is heading toward DOP classification (Denomination of Protected Origin)—which can already be applied to bottles from companies that have applied for and obtained certification (Garda Bresciano DOP for us, Lombard Lakes for Iseo and Como).