San Felice Del Benaco Hosts 2023 DOP Olive Oil Exhibition
All set in San Felice del Benaco to host the thousands of people visiting, from the 15th to the 17th, the 5th edition of the “Regional Exhibition of Quality DOP Olive Oil”: Olea 2001. About twenty producers will showcase, with tasting opportunities, their products, or rather their extra virgin olive oils marked and guaranteed with the DOP label.
The promoters of this Exhibition are particularly satisfied, starting with Giovanni Mazzoldi, president of AIPOL, Eurosia Gasparini, coordinator of the organizing committee supported by the municipal administration, who sees Gianluigi Marsiletti as the link between the municipality and the Committee, and, naturally, mayor Ambrogio Florioli. An event aimed at promoting one of the key products—the “most valuable of the Lombard lakes,” rightly asserts Mazzoldi—of Garda agricultural production, which has recently been awarded the designation “Protected Designation of Origin.”
Activities and tastings during the event
During the three oil days, it will be possible to taste and compare the various products present, learning to understand the different organoleptic and aromatic qualities that these natural products offer to our palates and sensory capabilities.
“At the heart of our commitment as representatives and defenders of a category that, although praised by experts and lovers of “quality at the table,” is still engaged in seeking a proactive identity capable of ensuring awareness, respect, and full dignity within the immense and never sufficiently celebrated Mediterranean agriculture,” said AIPOL president Mazzoldi during the presentation of the manual “Olive Cultivation in Lombardy.”
Full support for the event also from Provincial Agriculture Councillor Gianpaolo Mantelli, who hopes that “since in our area there are no large-scale producers, but rather a high quality of the product, all producers should unify under the same, qualifying banner of DOP.”
The role of Luigi Veronelli and olive oil regulations
One of the great advocates and defenders of the qualities and virtues of extra virgin olive oil is certainly the renowned sommelier Luigi Veronelli. “No other product has been betrayed as much by laws, first Italian, then European,” Veronelli writes alarmingly. “Only olive oil should be called olive oil, the sole oil obtained solely from pressing in the mill. For a good olive grower, their oil already costs 13,000 lire at the mill gate, before bottling. In supermarkets, bottles of extra virgin olive oil are sold at less than half that price!”
Veronelli continues that mill-produced olive oil excels over all other fats available for cooking and nutrition due to its naturalness. Gino Veronelli also advocates for controls to be entrusted to the Municipalities and within the scope of protected designations, and insists that “it should be mandatory, not optional, to indicate on the label both the precise and truthful locations where the olives were cultivated and the qualification and location of the mill.”
Program and tastings on Saturday
Certainly interesting and important themes that will likely be discussed during the meeting dedicated to DOP extra virgin olive oil, sponsored by AIPOL, scheduled for 6:00 pm on Saturday, June 16, at the San Felice Middle School. For those wishing to taste dishes prepared with Valtenesi olive oil, it will be possible at the gastronomic stand run by chefs from “Piccolo Grill,” while six restaurants—Primavera, Baia, Rio Verde, Agriturismo in Serra, La Pignata, and Cantina De La Merletta—will offer typical menus related to the exhibition.