This year, we have started our harvest around october 15th.
Our region had good dry and warm weather conditions, with an average of only 700 mm on rainfall. As a result, our olives cam to maturity about a week before most productions in the province.
We have groves on the North , South and West slopes of the Amiata hills. The trees located on the north-facing slopes received fewer hours of sunlight thus ripen more slowly and tend to produce oils that are more intense and aromatic. Trees growing on the southern and western slopes enjoy a longer exposure to sunlight and more coastal winds. They will yield a more powerful and complex oil.
The harvesters use large nets placed under the trees and dislodge the ripe olives by brushing the branches with long wooden poles. The net is picked up and folded to deposit the olives into small bins of 25kg only, to avoid the crushing the fruits at all costs! Our goal is to turn the olives to the mill in a 6 hour time. frame to start the pressing process
Several cultivars compose Olio Piro., including Olivastra Seggianese, Leccino, Moraiolo and Frantoiano. Our producers, Romain Piro and Daniele Lepori expertly blend each variety at different proportions every year, according to the singularity of each harvest, to design a perfectly balanced Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
Once our freshly picked olives arrive at the mill, they are sorted and cleaned of remaining leaves and sticks, washed in cold drinkable water and crushed through stainless steel rollers.
The olive paste will then be kneaded in a continuous stirring to break up the oil/water emulsion under the careful scrutiny of our miller Daniele, keeping a constant temperature of 72.5°F. This natural biochemical process is where the magic happens: the natural enzymes of the olives create the extra virgin olive oil. Here comes Olio Piro.!
In order to extract the oil from the blended mix, the paste is spinned at high velocity to allow the oil, which is lighter, to naturally separates from its own water. This is called the centrifuge method. It is done without the use of heat or chemicals - “First Cold Pressed Extra Virgin Olive Oil”.
We made the choice to use the labor and energy intensive method of bi-fase, where there is no added water before centrifugation. This very important innovation in the filtering process allows Daniele and Romain to deliver an exceptionally pure oil, with extremely low viscosity due to virtually no organic residue in our finish product.
It ill be stored in air-vacuumed stainless steel containers until bottled on demand.
