Why should olive oil be extra virgin and single estate?

A lot of my clients and friends from different parts of the world often ask me why they should buy the more expensive extra virgin olive oil, as opposed to simply olive oil. Extra virgin olive oils are the pure juice of cold pressed olives. 'Olive oil', apart from a small percentage of extra virgin, is oil extracted with the help of harmful chemicals, which of course end up in the bottle. To make things more confusing, I have seen cheap olive oil marketed as 'light' , which doesn't change the result: harmful chemicals.

extra virgin olive oil, single estate, just being pressed

The best extra virgin olive oils are 'single estate' ones, from small producers such us the ones here in Sabina, who harvest the olives at the right time, when they are turning from green to black. This ensures low acidity and plenty of antioxidants. The quantity produced might be less from each tree, but the quality is at its highest. This explains why good extra virgin olive oil is not cheap.
Moreover, would you buy olive oil from a huge company that also make washing powder and underarm deodorant? I wouldn't, even if their marketing image screams 'Italian-authentic-traditional'.

Chef Guido, Sally from Convivio Rome have been offering Rome Day Trips, Rome Olive Tours, Rome Wine Tours, Italian Cooking Classes and Italian Culinary Vacations in the Sabine Hills since 2006 and also Virtual online Italian Cooking Classes since March 2020. Find out more on the links below:

Convivio Rome Italian Cooking Holidays

One Day Italian Cooking Classes

Half Day Rome Olive Tours

Half Day Rome Winery and Wine Tasting Tours

Virtual Italian Cooking Parties

Online Cooking Classes with Chef Guido

Corporate Virtual Cooking Events

Guido's Cook Club Monthly Membership

Online Video Italian Cooking Package

The Sabine Hills: an insider's guide

Are you dreaming of your your next holiday to Italy? 

Would like to visit a magical destination that is off the beaten path and unknown to mass tourism?  

Please read on to be inspired!

Have you ever heard of the Sabine Hills area, in Italy? Find out more about Italy's Best kept Secret: the Sabine Hills in the article written by Chef Guido Santi for L'Italio Americano Magazine.

It is too good a secret, not to share again!

"For those looking for authentic, idillic rural Italy a stone’s throw from Rome, this is the perfect destination" writes Chef Guido, from Convivio Rome Italian Cooking Holidays. 

Full article can be found here, on this link. Enjoy!

Full article can be found here, on this link. Enjoy!

Chef Guido, Sally from Convivio Rome have been offering Rome Day Trips and Italian Culinary Vacations in the Sabine Hills since 2006. Find out more on the links below:

Convivio Rome Italian Cooking Holidays

One Day Italian Cooking Classes

Half Day Rome Olive Tours

Half Day Rome Winery and Wine Tasting Tours

Virtual Italian Cooking Parties

Online Cooking Classes with Chef Guido

Corporate Virtual Cooking Events

Guido's Cook Club Monthly Membership

Online Video Italian Cooking Package

Rome Olive Tour Video - Olive Tasting near Rome

Looking for a Rome Day Trip into the Rome countryside that is relaxed, fun and informative? 

Come along and  join us on a Half Day Rome Olive Oil Tour

Rome Olive Tour with Convivio Rome.

Come along and  join us on a Half Day Rome Olive Oil Tour

This 3 hour Rome Olive Tour includes a visit to the largest olive tree in Europe (2080 years old),  a guided tour of a local organic olive grove, plus a visit to our family home for an olive oil tasting and light lunch, sampling local Sabina produce with a glass of wine while overlooking spectacular and unspoilt views of the Rome countryside.

This tour is all about olive oil, its flavour and the art of olive oil making. During your olive oil tour we will drive you through beautiful rolling hills covered with olive groves, fruit orchards and vineyard, on our way to visit a family run olive grove, where extra virgin olive oil is still produced traditionally in the beautiful natural surroundings of the Sabina region, just north of Rome. This is a unique experience, a chance to learn about olive oil making, walk in the unspoilt Roman countryside and admire a number of well established olive trees that are certainly a few hundred years old.

Small group tours mean individual attention and you get to experience so much more.

Website : Rome Olive Tours
Convivio Rome runs Rome Olive Tours in the beautiful Rome countryside, in the Sabine Hills, all year round.
To find out more contact Guido or Sally on info@conviviorome.com

www.conviviorome.com/olive-tour.html

www.conviviorome.com

www.winetoursrome.com

Immersed in Olives and Sabina Extra Virgin Olive Oil

The lives of my family and I are intertwined with the local Sabina extra virgin olive oil. We are not only surrounded by olive trees, we grow, harvest, take the olives to press to make our own extra virgin olive oil and make local cures using our own herbs mixed in olive oil...we also cure and eat our olives whole. Extra virgin olive oil is an essential ingredient in all my Italian cooking classes and Italian Culinary Holidays. In other words, we are immersed in olives and olive oil, inside and out!  Our local Sabina extra virgin olive oil often referred to as 'liquid gold' as it is recognised to have many healing properties. The olive itself is a symbol of peace and longevity, and it has often been used as a base for medicines because of its healing powers.

Visiting the 'L'Olivone', the Largest Olive Tree in Europe, is the first stop on your Rome Olive Tour

When in Rome.....come for a visit to the Sabine Hills with us to find out more about this amazing fruit, that has a long long history and is entwined with the local culture, here in the Roman countryside. I run Rome Olive Tours all year round. Rome Olive Tours with Convivio Rome

We have just added a Follow Us button onto this Blog....so please Follow Us to get the latest information, first!

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How to cure olives, the Italian way

I've just finished the process of curing our own olives using the simplest local recipe from the Sabine Hills. It is so easy, that I wanted to share the local secrets on how to cure olives.

The olives (a 'carboncella' native Italian variety) collected from one of our trees back in December, were put inside a bowl, under layers of sea salt for 60 days.

Covered with large sea salt for 60 days

After rinsing off all the sea salt I left the olives to dry for 2 days on a cotton towel 

Then, I simply rinsed the olives and left them to dry on several cotton towels. I turned them every now and then to ensure they dried well.

I then chopped some orange peel and some garlic until I had a small handful of this mixture.

Finally, I put the cured olives in jars, mixing them with the orange peel and garlic and  finally covered them with our own olive oil. Fatto (done)!

Making sure all the olives are covered with extra virgin olive oil

PS: Nothing is ever wasted: for once all the olives are eaten, the olive oil from the jars can be re-used for dressing or cooking, with its wonderful flavour of orange and garlic.

Every Italian region have their own local recipes and methods on how to cure olives.

Let me know what way you cure olives as I would love to hear from you.

Convivio Rome conducts Rome Olive Tours, Italian Cooking Classes, 3 and 5 night Italian Culinary Vacations and Wine tours, all in the Sabine Hills, just north of Rome in Italy.

www.conviviorome.com

www.winetoursrome.com

The Olive Harvest Experience: picking our own olives

It all started one cool and sunny November day. Our small team of olive pickers joined us early in the morning, to help us harvest this year's olives. With nets, crates, and olive picking equipment ready, the work began.

Traditionally there would be 4 olive pickers working one tree at a time. Large nets would be arranged around the base of the olive tree, with two of the workers on wooden ladders working from the top of the tree down, gently 'raking' each olive branch to drop the olives onto the nets below. Those working on the ground would gather the olives in the net and place them into the crates. As each tree was completed and each crate filled with olives, they would move the nets to the next tree.
The olive picking process is much the same today, however to make the process more efficient, air compressed silicon hands , called 'la manina'  or 'the little hand'  are used to gently shake the olives off the tree onto the nets below.

We have a 'family sized' olive grove of 52 olive trees, with mainly 'carboncella' and 'leccino' olives (two of the main varieties of olives grown in the Sabine Hills).  Not all of our olive trees produced olives this year, but those that have, have produced in abundance. With a lot of help, we were able to harvest all our olives in just one day.

As the sun set, we took our crates of olives straight to a nearby 'frantoio', olive mill, to have our olives pressed immediately. To get the highest quality extra virgin olive oil, the olives need to be pressed with 24 hours of picking.

This year we harvested 200 kgs of olives which, once pressed, produced 46 litres of some of the best Sabina extra virgin olive oil I have ever tasted!

When you next come to visit us, you too, will be able to taste some of the wonderful Sabina extra virgin olive oil.
Learn more about our Half Day Rome Olive Tour at Convivio Rome.

We operation Rome Olive tours all year round, to discover more:
http://www.conviviorome.com/olive-tour.html
 email us on  info@conviviorome.com

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The Olive Harvest has already begun in the Sabine Hills, near Rome

The Sabine Hills, just north of Rome is famous for it's excellent DOP extra virgin olive oil, and this year promises to be a 'bumper crop' for the local olive farmers.

The trees are heavy with 1,000s of olives and the farmers have cut the herbs and grass between the trees and laid down the nets in preparation for the forthcoming harvest.

In fact, we can see, from our home windows, that the olive harvest has already begun in the olive groves on some of the nearby olive farms.

Partial view from our Convivio Rome Italian Cooking School, home terrace over olive groves below. 

They began the olive harvest today!

Olives are picked just once a year and usually around October or November. Due to a long, very hot and dry summer, the conditions have been perfect for olive production this year. The farmers in the Sabine Hills have had a hard time in the past 2 years in 2015 and 2016, so they definitely deserve a good harvest for this year. 

We will let you know how the olive harvest goes!

Come and taste the New 2017 Sabina D.O.P. Extra Virgin Olive Oil #EVVO with us during your 3 or 5 night Italian Cooking Holiday or during your Half Day Rome Olive Tour with Maestro Guido. 

www.conviviorome.com

www.winetoursrome.com

More photos on our Instagram page: conviviorome.italy https://instagram.com/p/BaJXp1ODyHb/

The magic of the Sabine Hills, captured: Farfa e Fara Sabina

Sabina is a small agricultural region just 40 kms north of Rome, surrounded by olive groves, medieval hilltop villages and ancient Monasteries. It is spectacular here. Sabina, is known as 'The Sabine Hills' (to English speakers) and in my opinion, far more beautiful, unspoilt, and far less touristy than Tuscany and Umbria.....and yet no one has ever heard of this area.

Convivio Rome runs 3 and 5 night Italian cooking Holidays. Half Day and One Day Italian Cooking Classes, Olive Tours and Wine Tours within this region.

This wonderful 2 minute video, taken by 'visitlazio.com' is breathtaking.

We hope you will be inspired to come and visit us and Convivio Rome

www.conviviorome.com

www.winetoursrome.com

The Olive Oil Farmers are jumping for joy in the Sabine Hills

We have had a few very cold days in #January, and the local #oliveoil farmers are jumping for joy! 'They say', just a few days of frost will help kill potential dangerous bugs/insects living in the #olivetrees.....so it looks like we have a great beginning for the production of #Sabina #EVVO extra virgin olive oil in this area for 2017! Viva Italia!

'Behind the scenes' in the Olive grove: Now is the time for trimming the olive trees. 

Cutting the extra branches off the olive tree, helps the tree to receive more light, heat and air, therefore optimum conditions for producing more fruit... Although the olive groves seem tranquil at this time of year, the farmers are still working, preparing the olive trees to produce their best! 

So 'fingers crossed' for the 2017 Sabina D.O.P. extra virgin Olive Oil.

www.conviviorome.com

www.winetoursrome.com

Rome Day Tours- Half Day Rome Olive Oil Tour with Convivio Rome.

The Sabina olive harvest has begun and the farmers are almost crying

We are now in the midst of this year's olive harvest and the organic farmers in the Sabine Hills are almost crying. They are picking earlier than usual, this year to salvage what olives they can. Some have been destroyed by the pest the olive farmers most fear: La mosca dell'olivo, the olive fly and other olives are not yet ready or already drying out on the tree.

Harvesting Olives using nets to capture the olives racked from the trees.

An olive farmer in Canetto, yesterday, told me "They need to harvest all olive varieties now, and get them to the olive press as soon as possible" He showed me some of the olives he had already harvested, gathered in the nets. Opening the olive you could see the damage the fly had already done.

Sabina Olives from an olive oil farm near Castelnuovo di Farfa

Not all olive trees in the Sabine Hills have been effected. The olive harvest in now in full swing.

Last year, the 2015 olive harvest was abundant, and the yield was high. However,  due to a mild winter plus hot and wet conditions in late Summer, the olive fly has once again, destroyed a lot of the olives organically grown in the Sabine Hills. near Rome. 

Gathering the olives in nets is hard work. Olive harvest happens just once a year.

Last year, the 2015 olive harvest was abundant, and the yield was high. However,  due to the last winter not being cold enough plus hot and wet conditions in late Summer, the olive fly has once again, destroyed a lot of the olives grown organically in the Sabine Hills.  They will produce what they can this year and hope for a better yield in 2017.

Medieval villages, Lakes, Mountains and more: north of Rome, Italy

To find out more about this amazing region, read an article written by Guido Santi, for About.com


http://goitaly.about.com/od/lazio/ss/Rieti-Province-Lazio-North-of-Rome.htm

Photo of Toffia, one of the many medieval villages in the Rieti province, just north of Rome, Italy.

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