Oil Mill

As early as 200 B.C. Marco Porzio Catone described “How to make green oil”.

When the olives start to change colour and some of them are black but most of them are still green you have to pick them by hand on a sunny day…..

Then we must not hesitate to crush the freshly picked olives and put them under the press…..

The less ripe the olives are, the more excellent the oil will be…..

Advice, suggestions, ancient procedures which are still valid although the oil mills no longer use a press. Furthermore, we have the space to aerate the olives as soon as they are picked, in large trays made of reeds from Lake Trasimeno; a brief but healthy stay before dropping through a hopper to be washed, crushed, kneaded and the oil extracted

Extraction of the oil is done at a controlled temperature always below 27 deg.

It is interesting to visit the oil mill with its ceilings covered in “fiescoli” (woven mats formerly used to hold the pulp during the pressing process). It is almost as if the fiescoli are looking down and observing the precision of each procedure to make sure that the product is always excellent and able to delight the most discerning and refined palate.