As the Carabinieri arrest 33 suspects involved in selling fake extra virgin olive oil to the USA, knowing the provenance of your oil is more important than ever. With Nudo you have a direct connection with your producer so know exactly where it comes from.
The suspects were importing olive pomace olive which is what remains of the pressed fruit pulp after milling. They were then extracting the remnants of olive oil from this using chemical solvents and bottling and labelling this as extra virgin olive oil to be sold through retail chains in New York, Boston and Chicago.
By the way, this is pomace...
Meanwhile it has been a busy start to the year in the Nudo Office with the rush to get our Olio Nuovo shipped to our olive tree parents across the globe.
Here in Liguria the harvest seemed to be quite a late one but luckily whilst the yields per tree were low the quality remained top notch. Rumour has it that yields were as much as 50% down this year in Italy…another reason to absolutely know what is in your bottle or tin as many less ethical producers may start to top these up with other oils like pomace oil, or even nut and seed oils.
It is always such a real thrill to meet customers when they come to visit their trees and the oil mill here in the Liguria. One of the questions I am always asked is why is Nudo extra virgin olive oil so good. I explain how it is to do with the freshness and quality of our olives - we never use olives that have been picked up from nets that have been lying around under trees for weeks, something that has unfortunately become custom here in Liguria. We also ensure to press it immediately after picking, whisking them off to the mill straight away. This is how you must make real extra virgin olive oil, but again unfortunately many are trying to cut corners and hope people don't find out. But the proof is in the punch.
I decided this year to take a few pictures to try and demonstrate the difference in olives, as of course you can't tell when it is in the bottle (before you taste it that is). These are Bestagno olives picked by hand from the trees. See how fat and firm they are and with a nice fresh glow about them.
And this is a sneaky picture I took of, well shall we just say NOT Nudo olives. A few are nice and juicy and have just been picked but you can see the ones that have been lying for weeks in nets under a tree. Here every fruit, even those which were rotting away on the ground in nets for weeks, were milled to get their oil.
I know which olives I would want to consumer the oil from...what about you?