L'Olivicola Casolana

The Casolana olive tree
We are an agricultural cooperative, a small community of about 120 members that aims at respecting and conserving biodiversity and the environment and the traditions of our land. Most of our olive groves are located within the Maiella National Park, in a privileged context of uncontaminated nature which gives us olives of superior quality both on a sensorial and nutritional level. We have always considered ourselves the custodians of this splendid territory and of the intosso, a native cultivar symbol of our area.
History
The company was founded in 1971 by a group of olive growers from Casoli and Palombaro. There are two key objectives: one, to join forces to enhance and protect the Intosso table olives of the area; two, to make known and bring our olive oil excellence in Italy and in the world. Success was not long in coming both on the domestic and foreign markets and, in the wake of the good results obtained, in 1986 the production of extra virgin olive oil also began. Already in 1988 we conquered important places on the shelves of the GDO. Today, we export our products to England, Denmark, Germany, Canada and the USA.
A superior quality oil
Today as yesterday, L'Olivicola Casolana combines the jealous preservation of the secrets of the oil art with the most advanced production systems. Cold extraction within 24 hours of collection, in our modern pressing plant helps to respect the properties of the raw material, returning an oil with intact properties and high nutraceutical value. In processing, the olives are subjected exclusively to mechanical processes.
The extra virgin olive oil of L'Olivicola Casolana is obtained by pressing fresh olives of excellent quality that have not undergone any other treatment other than washing, separation from the leaves, crushing and kneading, centrifugation and filtration. This processing method allows us to obtain extra virgin olive oil of great chemical and organoleptic quality. The oils obtained are then filtered, analyzed and stored in underground stainless steel tanks to guarantee a fresh and constant temperature and saturated with inert gas to preserve the quality of our product.
Confirming the goodness of the raw material and the operating methods, the numerous awards obtained over the years by our products:
featured in the Slow Food Guide to Extra Virgin Olive Oils;
● featured in the Assam Monovarietal Guide;
● featured in the Gambero Rosso Italian Oil Guide;
● Finalists Ercole Olivario;
● Winners Ercole Olivario - Table Olives 2021;
● Sol d'Oro Mention.
Another strong point is the circularity of the production cycle: for each processing phase there are no waste, but by-products that find life in other production circuits, guaranteeing sustainability to the ecosystem: the olive pit is destined for natural fuel, the vegetation is used for fertigation of our members' land.
White-label production
We carry out work on behalf of important wineries - including Fantini Vini, Velenosi Vini, Cantina Spinelli, Cantine Mucci - and for large-scale distribution such as the Gabrielli Group and Carrefour.
The territory
There are about 150,000 olive trees that the members of the cooperative cultivate. The olive groves are located in the municipalities of Casoli, Palombaro, Guardiagrele, Altino, Archi, S. Eusanio, but the greatest concentration is found on Piano Laroma, a plateau that extends to the foot of the Maiella. Suggestive is the image of this expanse of olive groves on the white soils of the plateau rich in calcareous gravel from which the Maiella forms the background.
In addition to the beauty and uniqueness of this type of soil, we must also mention its high drainage capacity: during rainy periods the olive trees do not absorb excessively water, while, in dry years, the stones on the surface act as protection by blocking the humidity ascent. This particular characteristic of the land, the altitude and the warm sun of Abruzzo create that special microclimate which gives the fruit unique properties for obtaining oil and table olives of the highest nutritional and sensorial quality.
In these territories the cultivation of the olive tree is very ancient. The cultivated varieties are the autochthonous ones such as the intosso, the gentile di Chieti, the cucco, the crognalegno and, only after the frosts of 1956, was the leccino introduced, as well as throughout Abruzzo.
The surfaces cultivated by our members are close to 1,000 ha, of which about 200 ha with the organic farming method.
Walking through the olive groves of Piano Laroma you can come across the remains of Romanesque walls, a glimpse of opus reticulatum that runs along the roadway. These are the remains that speak of the ancient Romanesque municipality named Cluviae, whose inhabitants were the Carecini.
The cultivation of the olive tree, which began in Abruzzo as early as the 5th - 4th century BC, had a notable development at the time of Roman domination, thanks also to the favorable climatic conditions of the area. We have evidence of this production both from the texts of Virgil and Ovid and other minor writers, and from the remains of the ancient trappeti.
During the imperial period the olive tree and other agricultural products became a bargaining chip between Abruzzo and the capital. Olive oil was an indispensable product in the daily life of the ancient Romans, who not only used it as a condiment in the kitchen, but also as fuel for lighting and as an ointment in the spas. It is therefore not strange that, over the centuries, a series of infrastructures for its production, marketing and transport had developed around this product.
The suggestion of this distant civilization, the geographical arrangement of the Piano Laroma plateau, between the mountains and the sea, are the roots on which the traditions and the centuries-old olive oil culture of its inhabitants rest. That's why we decided to dedicate a line of our products to Cluviae.
The Intosso
Intosso is a dual purpose olive variety, present throughout the territory of the Abruzzo region especially in the provinces of Chieti and Pescara, which characterizes the uncontaminated landscape of Piano Laroma, in the Municipality of Casoli, one of the most beautiful villages in the 'Italy.
Right here, on this plateau of about 300 hectares with soils rich in calcareous gravel, at the foot of the Maiella, the intosso variety has found its ideal environment.
The intosso plant is small in size, tolerates snow and winter cold well and has adapted to living in the few centimeters of loose soil that characterizes the plateau, so much so that below 350 meters of altitude it is difficult to produce.
The table setting
The intosso for table consumption is harvested from the end of September exclusively by hand only when it is green. You cannot use the nets and aids for harvesting as you do with those for oil, because the fruits would be ruined if they fell on the soil full of stones. Hand harvesting involves slow rhythms and smaller quantities of product than the large quantities that can be harvested with mechanisation.
Once harvested, the table root must be selected, defoliated and hulled and transferred to the cooperative. Here the olives are calibrated and processed. In order to be eaten, in fact, olives must be sweetened, or nd𝑜𝑠𝑠edema. And it is precisely to this practice that Gennaro Finamore traces the name of the variety intosso in his Vocabolario Dell'Uso Abruzzese of 1880. The method we use for the debittering is the Seville method.
The 𝑙𝑖𝑣 APK is a tradition around here. Everyone took care of the olives to consume them during the year. Our cooperative was born precisely for this typical product. Today, unfortunately, it has become an increasingly less widespread activity.
Over the years, competition from more productive and cheaper cultivars, first Italian, then Spanish and Greek, has added to the fatigue of its production and the uncertainty of the harvest. And, inevitably, over time, there has been a slow and silent abandonment of the production of canteen dressing.
We at l'Olivicola Casolana are proud to carry on this tradition. Even today we collect the table linen by hand, as it was once done and we work it with pride to make it known throughout Italy and the world.
Today is Presidio Slow Food.