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Tuscan products -  Olive

B.C. Olive trading routes grew up, and gradually Tuscany's landscape took on its silver-crowned appearance. In certain tragic years, frost devastated crops and trees, such as in January 1985, when it seemed that a changing environment menaced the future of olive cultivation. Luckily this was not the case, but this sector of horticulture was nonetheless affected. Up until the early 1980s, 30,000 tons of oil were produced per year, but today the figure is closer to 24,000 tons. 1995 was a particularly good year: Tuscany accounted for over 19 percent of the national production of 123,500 tons of olives. The province of Florence produces 30 percent of Tuscan olive oil, followed by Grosseto, Arezzo, Siena and Lucca. Tuscany's olive trees are not all the same. 80 percent of the trees belong to four varieties, Frantoio, Leccino, Maurino and Puntino (also known as Punteruolo or Trillo); the remaining 20 percent is made up of various other cultivars, including Picholine, of French origin. But in any case, the result is always that exceptional amber liquid, once considered as unhealthy but now returned to its rightful place by today's enthusiasm for the so called Mediterranean diet. There are eight classes of oil: the top is of course "extra vergine", in which the acid content is less than 1 percent, followed by "sopraffino vergine" (under 4 percent acidity) and then, in order, fino vergine, vergine, olive oil, olive and husk oil, rectified olive oil, rectified husk oil. The best way of testing oil quality is by tasting it, poured onto a piece of white bread.

The olive oil  in Tuscany
Without doubt the olive tree is somewhat of a symbol for tuscany. The landscape glimmering with silvery leaves has been a characteristic of the region since immemorial time, as documented by art and crafts running back hundreds of years. A calendar attributed to Sano di Pietro depicts a man and a woman harvesting olives; likewise a plate in majolica at the Victoria and Albert Museum of London. There is a fundamental difference between the two images: in the first, the couple gather the olives on the ground, while in the second one a young man is shown on a ladder amongst the branches, a basket in his hand. In the first case, the branches are beaten with sticks, the commonest technique used for the large Mediterranean trees, while in the second, the fruits are gathered by hand. Olive oil is an ancient tradition, common to many cultures and religions: it was used to anoint the wrestlers and athletes of Olympia, and to mark the most important moments in the life of Christians. Unfortunate are those peoples who have not had the olive in its mythology! The species arrived on the coasts of Italy 20 million years ago, as demonstrated by a fossil found in the area of Livorno: the Etruscans and Romans, starting from Populonia and Lucca, began cultivating olives in about 700
Tuscan olive oil
[Tuscan oil]  [Olive oil itinerary]

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