A Visit to an Olive Oil Mill in Southern Italy

We sat down to the long narrow table as our guide began to fill small ceramic bowls with different flavors of olive oil.  As she filled bowl after bowl, we sat amazed at how many different flavors she offered us to taste; after all, we were a group of only 3 people.  After filling over 30 different samplings of olive oil, vinegar and even honey we began the taste test.

In the southern Italian region of Campania, a short taxi drive from Sorrento, is the Frantoio Gargiulo olive oil mill.  The company offers free tours of the gardens and mill while giving a lesson on the workings of the mill and the history of the family farm.  After the tour, the host offers guests copious amounts of free olive oil tastings.

Learning about the specialty food of a country or region is a favorite activity of my husband and mine.  We have found that one of the best ways to learn about a region is to take a tour.  When that tour is free, all the better. In planning our trip to Sorrento, Italy, we searched for an experience that would help us learn more about the area.  We found this free tour and tasting at this nearby olive oil mill and decided it was a perfect way for our family to learn more about the Sorrento Peninsula.

Tour of the Garden among the Olive Trees

We started our tour walking through the gardens.  The chill of the late autumn air created the perfect atmosphere to wander through the ancient olive trees. Rosanna, our tour guide, gave us a history of the garden and mill as we walked.  Rosanna is Italian with a unique accent on her perfect English, a testament to her years living in New Zealand and New Jersey. She points out the old farmhouse as we walk by, in ruins now and taken over with vines and massive rosemary bushes. Fig, orange and lemon trees grow intermingled in this 2 hectare (nearly 5 acres) garden. Rosanna explains that the lemon and orange trees, heavy with fruit on this late autumn day, are the perfect understory for the tall olive trees.  We see the nets bunched up underneath the trees and our guide describes how the workers spread the nets under the tree canopy to catch the olives during harvest. Some of the olive trees are more than 200 years old.  In Sorrento, it is illegal to cut down an olive tree and a government official comes by once a year to count the trees.

The Olive Oil Mill–Old and New

We wind our way back to the factory and pass the old granite mill and press that the Gargiulo family used when Frantoio Gargiulo opened in 1849.  Rosanna explains that they once used donkeys walking in circles around the stone, which crushed the olives. Next the millers put the pulp into the manual press and extracted the oil.

The new mill is much more technologically advanced with pristine factory components. Rosanna explained the seven-step process to us:

1. Harvest.  Many olive farms use machines that shake the trees, and the olives fall into nets hung below the tree’s canopy.  The olives left on the trees are picked by hand.  It is nearly impossible for farm equipment to climb the hillsides of this Sorrento penninsula, so much of the harvest here is completed by hand.
2. Transport to the mill.  Workers place the olives into large plastic crates.  These plastic crates allow the air to circulate and eliminate the mold that wood boxes promote.   
3. Olives cleaned. This process removes the dirt, stones and leaves from the olives and continues to circulate clean water while the debris leaves the cleaning tank.
4. Grinding. A series of rotating discs (hammers) with sharp edges break the olive membrane.  This turns the olives into a pulp.
5. Kneading. A steel tank with helical blades rotating through the pulp separates the water from the oil.
6. Separation. The olive paste is placed into metal cages.  A machine presses the paste and an oily must exits through holes in the cage.  This oily must is then put into a centrifuge to further separate the oil.
7. Filtration. After this last phase of filtration, the freshly milled olive oil is ready for packaging.

The Tasting Room

Our tour ends in the tasting room where we sample many different types of olive oil, along with flavored infusions.  We also taste house-made vinegars and honey. Rosanna placed each bottle behind the bowl as she describes the product.  She explains that the most popular oil is Syrrentum, the classic olive oil that Gargiulo mill makes.

After the tasting, we were well informed to make our purchase here at the source.  We purchased many bottles of olive oil, including some for Christmas presents.  Before going on this tour we used olive oil quite frequently, but this tour flipped a switch on our olive oil consumption–we use it daily now.    It is a special thing to use olive oil from a mill that we’ve toured.

The most Authentic Olive Oil of the Region

One product of note is the Syrenum D.O.P. Sorrento Peninsula.  Because it is designated with D.O.P., it is monitored throughout every stage of production by the Is. Me.Cert (Mediterranean Institute of Certification).  Gargiulo makes this particular oil with only the “Minucciola” variety, the typical olive of the Sorrento Peninsula.  Read more about this designation and the olive oil of this region on the Gargiulo website.

Buying from Frantoio Gargiulo

Our “free” tour didn’t end up being so free because we purchased more than I’d like to admit.  But, we were delighted to receive the delivery of a large, box filled with bottles and tins of olive oil, shortly after we returned home from our trip.  Although we like the flavor-infused oils, our favorite is the Syrrenteum, the basic olive oil.  In addition to the Syrrentum, with its delicate flavor, we also enjoyed a few other products.  The delicious honey was a favorite of our daughter and didn’t last long in the cupboard.  And the jar of walnuts immersed in honey, was like a dessert.

Out of all of the bottles and tins we bought, we only have about a third of a bottle left.  We savor this bottle and use it sparingly.  We need to reorder soon.  Sure, we can go to Costco and buy a bottle that’s significantly cheaper; but there’s something remarkably charming about having walked by the trees that produced the olive oil we are consuming.

If you are traveling to Sorrento or the Amalfi Coast, this is a great experience to add to your itinerary.  If you can’t make it there for a while and want to taste authentic olive oil straight from the source, then check out Gargiulo’s online shopping.

Tips from Sushi and Gelato:

• This tour is great for families.  Kids love walking through the garden, seeing the behind the scenes of the factory and tasting the different samples.
• The tour is free, but you should contact Frantoio Gargiulo in advance to make a reservation.
• The word frantoio is Italian for oil mill.

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