The World of Olive Oil

- [Frank] I'm Frank Licari, a first generation Italian actor, TV host and filmmaker.

Growing up, family community, and yes, food was everything.

My mother and grandmother taught me that one thing you should never sacrifice is the quality of your food and drink.

And olive oil always played a major role.

- [Fil] I'm Fil Bucchino, a Florence born Toronto bred, ex punk rocker, and olive oil expert.

Today, my obsession with olive oil has me traveling the world and bringing me back to Italy year after year in pursuit of the divine gift of nature I like to call liquid gold.

- [Frank] Together, we're traveling from region to region throughout Italy to connect the past to the present, and bring you the future in the World of Olive Oil.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - From soaps, detergents, and cosmetics to helping with inflammation, sleep and heart disease, and yes, frying, sauteeing, drizzling, and dipping, Olive oil has many uses.

Considering it's been around for almost 8,000 years.

It's only in the last 30 or so that it's really come into its own.

With roots in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean, it was once considered sacred and used for religious purposes.

Today it's evolved and loved worldwide.

But do you know where the olive oil on your table comes from?

How olive oil differs from region to region, country to continent, or even how to pick the best olive oil for your taste.

Welcome to Italy, the most biodiverse country in the world of olive oil.

Unsurprisingly for a former rock musician, Fil is late.

So I'm stuck having to enjoy Italy by myself for a few hours while I wait to pick him up from the airport.

Tough life.

(upbeat music) You know, this is not a very good start to our adventure.

- Look at you.

- Look at you.

Good to see you buddy.

- Yeah, great to see you.

- Like a star.

Come on, come on.

(upbeat music) After a slight delay, we finally made it to the slopes of Mount Aetna.

Europe's largest and most active volcano.

The land not only influences the quality of the harvest, but its very future as well.

Here you'll find some of Sicily's oldest olive trees that have witnessed history for thousands of years.

Olive oil producer Salvatore Scuderi meets us in one of these ancient groves.

His main goal is to make (speaks foreign language), the extra virgin olive oil that combines the sun and earth in the ancient Sicilian tradition.

Wow.

I have, I've never seen an olive tree this wide.

What's the story with that?

- There's at least, at least a thousand.

(Salvatore speaks foreign language) - [Frank] So this, we're talking about the cradle of civilization in terms olive oil.

- [Fil] For sure.

- The Syrians brought it over.

We're talking thousands of years with this.

Incredible.

(Salvatore speaks foreign language) - [Fil] That's an incredible thing.

It's a thousand years old.

It's part of the story of this town.

And it still produces fruit.

Just shows you the resilience of the olive tree.

The generosity of the olive tree.

- Does the soil because of Aetna, the volcanic ash.

How does that inform the growth here in this area?

(Salvatore speaks foreign language) As these legacy trees survive in a unique ecosystem influenced by the ever present volcano and the ash it produces, their olives over time, promise of taste that is specific and special only to this area.

(Salvatore speaks foreign language) Fresh cut grass.

(Salvatore speaks foreign language) Those who live here are respectful of the great volcano that looms in the distance, and they call on the great protection of Saint Agatha, who is believed to intercede against the volcano's violent destruction.

- [Fil] A visit to Catania quickly reveals the strong faith that the locals have in this patron saint.

(Salvatore speaks foreign language) - So you're basing your entire business model on a saint protecting the valley, I think that's a very Italian thing.

I like that.

That's great.

(gentle music) Before heading to our next location on this beautiful island of Sicily, Salvatore urged us to visit Bronte, a town famous for its treasured pistachio nut.

- [Fil] Grown in the same volcanic soil as the olive trees here, these nuts are so special.

They've even been granted government protection.

- [Frank] At (speaks foreign language), we take a quick cooking class from Chef Sandro and learn the art of pairing extra virgin olive oil with local pistachios to make culinary masterpieces.

(Sandro speaks foreign language) Precious pistachio culinary delights combined with Salvatore's olive oil.

We felt so lucky.

Until we didn't.

(upbeat music) - [Fil] Of course, our driver, Frank, refused blame.

- But it was maybe a misjudgment on my part.

This isn't America.

You don't have a lot of wide roads here.

It's very narrow.

And I probably-- - So then maybe your drive would respect the land.

- I did respect it.

- You respect-- - I did respect it.

- You take it easy.

- It was potholes.

Maybe I hit a old olive tree.

That's been, a thousand year old olive tree took out my tire maybe.

(upbeat music) I was thinking maybe we just needed a smaller car to negotiate the narrow roads.

(upbeat music) - [Fil] Introducing 'il topolino rosso', 'the little red mouse'.

- [Frank] Now we're off to the southeastern corner of Sicily to Buccheri, the highest municipality in the Hyblaean Mountains.

It is wildly considered one of Italy's most beautiful villages.

Here the business of olive oil is a longstanding Spano family tradition.

For over five generations, pride and perfection is melded into every harvest.

- [Fil] Mariagrazia and her sister Tanya have taken over the family business and picked each and every olive by hand.

The result is an award-winning and world renowned olive oil.

(Fil speaks foreign language) - Fil.

(people speak foreign language) - Mariagrazia meets us and proudly shares what makes their variety of olive oil, (speaks foreign language), so rare and diverse.

- This is called San Andrea Valley, and this is the olive oil valley because here there is the production of (speaks foreign language) and-- - (Fil) Beautiful (speaks foreign language).

- Beautiful (speaks foreign language).

Si, very balanced olive oil.

- [Frank] This particular extra virgin olive oil originates from ancient orchards, fed from an underwater volcanic complex millions of years old.

The olive trees also benefit from excellent day to night temperature swings, as well as a soil rich in minerals.

- And this space is very old.

My, of course, my family owns it since the end of the 19th centuries.

We don't have new trees.

And the difficulty is also in picking, of course, because here you cannot use any mechanical thing because they are very old and delicate.

Yes.

You can damage them if you shake, for example.

So we have to pick by hand.

- 10,000 trees by hand.

- Yes.

Yes.

Every year is like this.

- [Frank] Inside the old mill, there is evidence of generations of olive oil production.

A reminder to Mariagrazia of the legacy her father left her, yet she and her sister struggled in the beginning to prove themselves in a man's world.

- [Mariagrazia] I had some difficulties when my father died because I had to no to take the power.

- [Frank] Take charge.

- [Mariagrazia] Yes, the charge.

- [Frank] Today, it is her mission to set the straight about extra virgin olive oil and elevate it to the status that wine enjoys.

- Many people think that wines and olive oil has more or less the same history.

But it's not like this.

- Not at all.

- Not at all.

Because people start to have a real culture about wines.

They are able now to distinguish between wine and another.

One region, the production of one and the other.

With olive oil, we are at a lower level because olive oil is a word and they put everything inside.

There is no real distinction.

And so we have to improve.

- Recently, I think, and there's a couple points that that makes me think of, recently I think they've said, this is Italian olive oil.

This is Greek olive oil.

- It means nothing.

- Means nothing.

- Great point too.

People just always say, well, I like Lebanon, it's amazing.

I'm from Italy, it's amazing.

I'm from Greece, it's amazing.

It's about the production, it's about the air, it's about the care.

Mariagrazia looks through every single phase because unlike wine, wine can be corrected post-harvest.

Olive oil cannot.

- [Frank] Mariagrazia's trees are protected by local authorities because of their proximity to the remains of the 13th century Gothic church of Santa Andrea.

Here, the Knight's Templar worshiped among what many consider the tree of peace.

- [Mariagrazia] It's a sign of peace.

- [Fil] It's a sign of peace.

- [Mariagrazia] Of course.

- [Fil] I mean the peace that you're feeling here.

- It's the symbol of peace.

I always have thought something that, an important thing, according to me, Jesus Christ decided to spend his last, the last night of his life.

And he knew that the day after he was crucified not in an orange garden but in an olive tree grove.

- Which is what Gethsemane is.

- Yes.

- It's an olive grove for those who don't know.

- And this is the reason why the olive is the symbol of peace, of brotherhood.

- Yes.

- Of a united world.

- Olive oil is the great connector.

It connects people, it brings people together.

It's the one thing again, it's the one thing that we all agree on and we all want.

And it's beautiful.

Olive oil lives on when you share it.

- [Frank] Absolutely.

- (Mariagrazia)Yes.

And I think we've proven one thing today, that Jesus was Italian.

- (laughing) Yes, of course.

(upbeat music) - [Frank] In an unspoiled enclave of Lake Garcia in Northern Sicily, we discover a farm where they've been making olive oil for over 150 years.

We are greeted by horses, goats, and a terrain that is parched and in need of rain.

Out of a newly built farmhouse walk two men who are living their dream.

- Bongiorno.

(people speak foreign language) - Frank.

(people speak foreign language) Owners Paolo Miceli and Sensat bought this farm after a successful career in advertising.

Although Sicily is one of Italy's largest producers of commercial olive oil, Miceli and Sensat have shifted their focus to biodiversity and protecting the natural resources of the region.

- Around that day 50, because we are the same age.

We think what we do for the rest of the life, we want to stay to living in a big city, do this work very stressed, or we want to change life.

We want to dedicate something that we love.

And-- - So you picked an easy business.

- Yeah.

- Olive oil.

- Not only thinking about ourself.

We, this project is of the land.

Taking care of this piece of land.

We are only passing by for a few years.

And those trees, if things go right, we are gonna be here in 2000 years.

- And we always say people that take care of olive oil trees, they're almost like custodians.

We're guarding it for the next generation.

- That's it, that's beautiful.

- It's our job to take care of it now.

And hopefully you're inspiring enough people that the next generation wants to take care of it.

- That's what we want, to inspire.

- [Frank] The organic and self-sufficient operation of this land.

And the cultivation of its olive trees takes care of an entire community, which in turn benefits the environment on many levels.

- What I love is the, it's the philosophy starting with not, it's not just we're making olive oil.

There's an environmental, there's a community component.

- Yeah, of course.

- All through beautiful extra virgin olive oil.

- [Frank] Part of the sustainability is investment in irrigation that takes from the lakes on the property.

Other methods such as keeping bugs at bay without pesticides, is what makes this farm truly organic.

- We are seeing how many illness and things are because of what we are eating.

I mean, it's so natural for us to take care of the land we are in.

So being organic, is, you can't use pesticides.

So the fruit, because at the very end, and what's an olive, is a fruit.

And whatever you give that fruit to eat-- - It's gonna end up in there.

- It is going to, yes.

And then inside.

We want an extremely healthy product.

And that means not only that it won't harm the consumers, but it's gonna have benefits.

- Benefits, that's right.

- Because of the polyphenols, is the olive oil is the biggest and stronger antioxidant in nature.

- Absolutely.

And I notice there's no bugs on your trees.

- Yes.

- And that's due to these things?

- That's it.

- [Frank] You're wrapping each tree with that?

- Yes, we are.

We have now, we had until last year 49,000 trees.

Now we have 52.

And this is put by hand, tree by tree.

So when bugs come up, they get stuck here.

They get stuck.

They can't get up to the leaves.

- [Frank] Passion for olive oil runs deep here.

Sergio descends from a venerable olive oil producing family in Spain.

The land this farm sits upon is property the two men bought from Paolo's family who have been growing olives in Sicily and Tuscany since the mid 19th century.

- [Fil] But with ownership and commitment comes responsibility.

And with a drought that plagues Sicily, thanks to climate change, the worry of water and irrigating the groves weighs heavily.

The irrigation lakes that border the farmhouse are all dry now, leaving Sergio and Paolo praying for rain and lots of it.

- [Paolo] It is a big problem for the farms.

- Of course.

Well, especially when you're working on a sustainable matter when you're depending on rain.

- Yeah.

It is a problem.

But we hope something changes in the future.

But this year is very, very hard year, season.

- But the beautiful thing about this job to an agriculture in general, is that there's always a new harvest.

- Yeah.

My father tell me all years, sometime when season is very bad, don't worry, next is better.

- That's right.

- This is the old time I remember now.

Don't worry.

Next year-- - Next year it gets better.

- That gets better.

- You gotta keep that hope.

- Yeah.

The farmer is the engine for the farmer.

- That's right.

- They hope next year is better.

- It's the same with love.

- Yeah.

- Got love.

Next time is gonna be better.

- That's right.

(gentle music) - Before we leave the area, it would be an insult to the family if we didn't stop to visit this famous Sicilian city.

I've never been here, but I've heard about the place.

- I've never been here either.

I've always wanted to be here.

- But we are in the heart of Corleone.

And who are we here to see?

- We're here to see Pasquale Mimo Medina.

- To get it because usually I would never come, I wouldn't think to come here for information.

Usually very tightlipped.

- I wouldn't be asking for directions now.

- Right.

So, uh, whoever, whichever one of us goes down first, the other one goes for help.

(chuckling) (gentle music) Thankfully, we made it safe and sound to the organic olive grove of Bona Fortuna, where we met up with the main producer, Mimmo Pasquale Marino.

(Mimmo speaks foreign language) So you're, you're on the ground.

It's on a ground.

- Yeah, he's a PhD.

- I didn't know that.

- In botany, in botany.

I have two PhD, in forestic and biodiversity.

- [Fil] Oh, wow.

- And I follow this company from the beginning when it's born.

And one of the most big challenge was to create a pristine place because the traditional agriculture, uses a lot of pesticides.

During the first two years we spend a lot of energy to clean everything.

Remove all alien species, - [Fil] Which is more difficult.

- Yes, it's more difficult.

And activate a lot of regulation inside of the company to protect the wild animals, the wild flora and all habitats we have here.

We have-- - So, you have almost like a code of ethics for everything that you do and don't do.

- Right.

My personal code of ethics is the botany and biodiversity, because the richness of the diversity of life is the security for the future.

We have a big bank as biodiversity.

- [Frank] Mimmo believes that securing and preserving the future of the land is just as important as the quality of the olive oil that they produce.

Most importantly, staying attuned to the local climate and natural environment promotes healthy living.

- [Mimmo] In addition, this is the appetite for a lot of hundred birds and animals.

- So biodiversity here, it's at its highest.

- We have the chances of, we have a, on this farm, a hundred-forty species of birds.

-Wow, wow Eagles and others birds because the trophic chain is complete.

Is okay.

It's balanced.

The fox, the porcupine, a lot.

- Everything lives in harmony.

- Web bills, harmony and energy.

Because the level of energy, the ecological productivity is totally different if compared with the olive grove in the neighbor of the city or other city.

- This is dealing with the natural circle of life and natural co generation where energy begets energy.

So you're, the energy here is feeding this energy and it never stops.

- If you stay here seated or sleeping for an hour, you fell in your body regeneration.

You feel energy.

- Which is crazy.

- Well, that's good because we lost our hotel.

So we're gonna stay here tonight, actually.

Is that okay?

- We can sleep maybe with a tent.

- Yeah perfect.

We can camp out here tonight.

- Maybe we just get assimilated by nature.

(music) - We're both Italian.

Right?

Sicily, salt of the earth.

Commitment, dedication to what they're doing.

- Totally, and pride.

- [Frank] Right.

That's the main thing that you're seeing.

- It's been amazing.

- And what's incredible is the amount of, of the terrain, the amount of pitfalls that they could be having.

- Yeah it's like, it's almost like they have three common threads.

It's like community first, the people, their land directly, and all of them obsess with the quality of the product going completely against the tradition of what's traditionally known as Sicilian olive oil.

We're pioneering a new frontier in olive oil production.

- And you can't say Sicilian olive oil.

You can't say Italian olive oil.

- No, no, no.

- Because if you say that you're, it's a misnomer.

- No, and you said it, it's not olive oil.

It's olive oil.

It's not even Italian olive oil.

Because not only depends on the region, it's on the micro region.

We've seen three different types of producers, three different types of cultivars, three different types of production because of their land in the terroir.

Complete different product.

It is time to leave Sicily and head to the mainland of Italy.

Through the mountains, the rugged terrain and miles of ancient olive groves that have weathered wars, plagues and droughts, the skies open up, and it begins to rain.

(thunder rumbles) (funky music) - [Frank] We are in Napoli, Italy's bold and brash city with a high intensity like that of its volcano, Mount Vesuvius.

Here we find ourselves in the birthplace of pizza and home to one of the best pizzerias in the world, (speaks foreign language) Kalo.

- [Fil] It is one of only six pizzerias to be included in Italy's Michelin guide.

Owner Ciro Salvo credits his success on sourcing products from the surrounding area.

(Ciro speaks foreign language) Ciro also values one of the most important ingredients for his acclaimed pizza.

And that is, as you might have guessed, top olive oil, (Ciro speaks foreign language) A rancid oil will ruin the dish.

You're not, we're not gonna put a rotten tomato on a pizza.

But yet we do that with olive oil every single day.

(Ciro speaks foreign language) And what is this magical olive oil that elevates Ciro's pizza up to the heavens?

The producer is a name that is whispered as one of the masters of Italian olive oil.

Nicolangelo Marsicani.

(gentle music) - I've never heard of a chef, when I read the ingredients, I knew the type and where the tomatoes from, the type and cheese and where that's from, and the type of olive oil.

I've never even heard of a restaurant used five, six different olive oil.

- Right.

- Incredible.

- I mean, I was saying it was actually almost, it's emotional for me.

It's emotional because we've been fighting for a long time trying to bring value to this incredible gift of nature that everybody keeps neglecting and not neglecting, ignoring.

But one thing for sure, once you know what a good oil tastes like and how it makes you feel when you put it on food-- - [Frank] You can't go back.

- [Fil] Can't go back.

All of a sudden it's elevated like all your other amazing ingredients.

- Why Marsicani?

(people speak foreign language) A genius they say, well, it's back in the topolino rosso in search of Nicolangelo Marsicani through winding roads and across a stretch of hills.

About an hour drive south of Naples we come to the small town of Sihidi.

- [Fil] Marsicani is known in this region as the poet of olive oil.

We find the master waiting for us.

- Nicolangelo.

(people speak foreign language) That was quick.

In the heart of the Cilento natural reserve in the southern region of Campania, the Marsicani family has been producing olive oil since the beginning of the 1900s.

(Marsicani speaks foreign language) - [Fil] Nicolangelo has devoted his life not only to production, but to education and transformation of olive oil.

He once famously said, for me, making olive oil is an act of pure selfishness.

(Marsicani speaks foreign language) - [Fil] The ancient (speaks foreign language) mill or olive press in Italian is an eyeopener.

Extracting olive oil was no small feat hundreds of years ago.

First the olives were crushed using an ancient stone grinder.

Then the pace was spread onto woven mats called fiscally and pressed to extract oil giving rise to the commonly used term, first pressing.

- [Frank] This was hard work that would take days.

And while romantic often led to oil spoilage by today's premium standards.

(people speak foreign language) (Fil) Nicolangelo, these are, 100, 200 .

.

.

- Wow, look at that.

- So we're coming here and past the winters in these places.

- Amazing, amazing.

Yeah and there's nice coverage too for that.

- Now all of this being more difficult to, I mean, I'm thinking like we're on a hill, irregular growth.

Everything that we looked at is sort of straighter.

This must be more difficult to harvest.

There's no doubt.

(people speak foreign language) That's incredible.

- That's beautiful.

(people speak foreign language) Nicolangelo uses modern methods of producing quality olives by considering the soil and pruning the trees in a way to allow maximum sunlight on all sides of the tree.

- Harvesting a healthy olive is only the beginning.

Once picked a series of irreversible changes like oxidation begin to take place.

The poetry comes into play when science meets precision.

Enter Marsicani's cutting edge mill.

These are the millers.

This is the first, I mean, when we talked about cold pressing, pressing doesn't exist anymore.

That's an extraction and an elaboration of the olive.

So here it is, the first process where the olives get washed and they get cleaned and they come through, there's different crushers.

And they get crushed.

It's the first crushing.

- [Frank] In the next room, Nicolangelo explains the olive paste is brought here for malaxing, separation and filtration.

(Marsicani speaks foreign language) - And that is the big misconception is that at the end of the day, to make olive oil is really easy.

I've said it a thousand times before, you take the olive to mill you're gonna crush 'em.

You're gonna squeeze 'em, you're gonna get oil.

- Like orange juice.

Just take the fruit, crush it, and it's-- - And that's the generosity of the olive tree and the olive.

It's gonna give you oil.

To make a great oil, it's a complete different game.

It's a complete different game.

One extra minute here.

One change, a little in temperature, one degree up or down.

Complete different oil.

And I don't mean a little bit different oil.

A complete different oil.

- Right.

Prior to being classified as extra virgin, the oil must adhere to a chemical standard and pass a sensory evaluation by an elite panel of professional tasters.

Nicolangelo introduces us to his expert taster, Michele Siniscachi.

(Michele speaks foreign language) OK.

But what does that mean?

How do I know as a person did the defect?

- Basically no oxidation, no fermentation, no rancidity.

If it smells like crayons, if it smells like paint that's dried.

- Wow.

- [Fil] Yeah, if it smells like butter.

- [Frank] It's freshness.

- Freshness.

There has to be an essence of nature in the oil.

- Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

Tasting olive oil is similar to tasting wine.

There are a variety of aromas, flavors and sensations.

(Michele speaks foreign language) And now for the tasting part, you take the olive oil into the back of the mouth and then perform what they call (speaks foreign language), the slurping method used to taste the oil.

Okay it's not as sexy as tasting wine, I'll admit, but the slurp, emulsifies the oil.

And once you swallow it, the flavor becomes apparent.

- Ooh.

- [Frank] Wow.

- Wow.

This is delicious.

(Michele speaks foreign language) And listen, the beautiful thing about this, you don't have to be an expert.

This is obviously very technical.

It's very scientific.

At home, it has to smell good.

It has to taste good.

(Michele speaks foreign language) - [Frank] Nice work.

(Michele speaks foreign language) I'm gonna keep your rule.

Well, now we know what puts the extra in extra virgin olive oil, a fruity smell, a bitter and spicy taste, and absolutely no fermentation or oxidation defects.

As Caesar would say, veni, vidi, vici.

we came, we saw, and we conquered the understanding of what makes great extra virgin olive oil.

- [Fil] Speaking of Caesar, it's now off to Rome and to the Colosseum.

You can find olive groves all over Italy.

And in the most unexpected places.

In fact, such a surprise exists right beside the Colosseum in Rome.

When you venture into the archeological park on Palatine Hill, you can stroll along the pathways on rows of olive trees, just as the ancient Romans did.

Rome resident Simona Cognoli, an educator and communicator on olive oil, tells us that olive trees were here long before the Coliseum.

(Simona speaks foreign language) And not black olives, which, by the way, green or black are the same olive.

The olive is a fruit.

And the black olives are just more mature.

(Simona speaks foreign language) - [Fil] Very mature ripe olive.

(Simona speaks foreign language) -(Frank) Interesting.

Back in the day, the almighty olive was a huge commodity.

And even more important to the Roman Empire than wine.

- More important wine.

- More important wine.

- He give you light, he give you food, he give you ointment, he give you medicine.

- Yes.

Lighten the city.

Yes.

- [Frank] And in the eternal city at the Court hotel bar, it is olive oil that also gives you a delicious martini.

- We are very focused on flavor, so we try to give you the best fifth essence of extra virgin oil or Evo.

So what we do, we do like a-- - [Fil] I love that.

- Red distillation by root evaporator, of gin and Tuscany olive oil.

Extra virgin olive oil.

And we also create a, like a, like a flavor, like an aroma.

Liquid aroma with bread, roasted bread.

So in Rome, in Italy, normally this kind of food, the name is a bruschetta.

- [Frank] Bruschetta, wow.

- [Matheo] Roasted bread, touch of salt and extra virgin oil.

- [Fil] World famous mixologist, Matheo Zed created this cocktail as a nod to his Italian culture by reimagining the quintessential martini.

- [Frank] It's a liquid interpretation of a bruschetta.

- [Matheo] Exactly.

This is our martini bruschetta.

So bruchettini.

- [Fil] I love it.

- As we've learned, olive oil in ancient Rome was a significant part of daily life.

Used as a staple food.

It was also used for religious rituals, personal hygiene, lighting, cosmetics, and medicine.

As we're about to find out, the health benefits of extra virgin olive oil are enormous.

You know, I'd never been to Campania before.

- Oh man, I love Campania.

Often when we talk about extra virgin olive oil, we don't often think about Campania.

But Campania, I mean, when you think about, Nicolangelo Marsicani, where he's at in the middle, literally in the middle of the mountains, and taking that knowledge and the experimental things that he's doing to raise quality of olive oil and exporting it worldwide is phenomenal.

- [Frank] And getting it to Naples where Ciro's using it in his pizzas.

And he's doing amazing.

- [Fil] And Ciro's work is phenomenal because he's one of the few that looks at extra virgin olive oil with the same importance of an ingredient as he does with everything else that he selects on the food, which we've been talking about that.

It's definitely not an invisible ingredient.

- Yeah.

And then of course, Simona educating people.

And like that's-- - Simona's been a pioneer for years and just keeps pushing, informing people, educating people, and bringing more elevated human beings into the world of olive oil.

(upbeat music) Now we take you (speaks foreign language) towards Umbria in search of why olive oil is considered the perfect ancient health elixir for today's world.

Visiting the picturesque region of Umbria means driving through a Peruvian landscape.

We finally come upon Tera del Papa, the largest olive tree plantation in Italy, with over a half a million trees of 16 different varieties.

- [Frank] Within the sea of groves, we meet well-known dermatologist and bestselling author Nicholas Perricone, the doctor who literally wrote the book on the benefits of olive oil for health and beauty.

- In ancient Rome when they'd go to the baths, they would even massage with olive oil and then they would scrape it with a sharp stick and they had all this anti-inflammatory effects on the outside.

But what I'm working on now, which is really important, it's pretty good data right now showing us that if you take olive oil, it protects part of the cell called the mitochondria.

And the mitochondria is what we make energy.

But it's critical because we now know that air pollution and the tiny ones, it's called two microns, gets into the mitochondria and talks to us.

So my work I'm doing now with Yale, and we're doing this independent study, we want to prove that maybe a table spoon of olive oil every day would protect the mitochondria from air pollution.

- Wow.

- So that's the important part.

- And is that raw right in, you're not just using it with food, but you're taking it as a teaspoon like you would like medicine, right?

- Yeah, yeah.

Like medicine but it tastes good.

- Amazing, the right stuff.

- That's delicious.

- If we put a little tomato sauce in there.

- Absolutely.

Yeah you're enjoying your medicine.

I like that.

Yeah, it's amazing that you can actually have a great taste and something that's amazing for you.

- History tells us everything.

But I'm so enthused about this and what we're doing now, and I think we can change the health.

So if I can just get people to eat the anti-inflammatory diet, try to stay away from sugar, it's just pro-inflammatory.

You take it and just a huge burst.

But olive oil is gonna save us.

- I love that.

- [Fil] Olive oil is gonna save us.

- Yeah, that's good.

I like that.

And you know, it's funny, we're just rewinding the clock.

We're going back 8,000 years and saying what?

Eat well, eat healthier, have a healthier lifestyle.

Walk.

- Balanced lifestyle.

- A balanced life.

- With good people.

- We're not, you know, the fact that this is hard to get through to people.

- I know.

- And a glass of wine is pretty good too.

- [Fil] Especially around here.

- Absolutely.

Olive oil is rich in antioxidants, and when applied to the skin, may even help prevent premature aging.

The Del Papa family are working on various olive oil ventures that go beyond the producing of olive oil for consumption.

- [Fil] Recently they've been working on a skincare line that combines cutting edge technology with age old beauty secrets.

- It was actually me and my brother who decided to try to have our own skincare line.

To do that, we had to invest in research, we had to work a lot on our formulas.

We actually got a manufacturing patent on a special ingredient called sodium (speaks foreign language).

(speaks foreign language), which is essentially a special type of ingredient that comes from olive oil, and olive oil fatty acids.

- [Fil] And it's a natural ingredient.

- [Lucrezia] Yeah, correct.

- Fully extracted.

- Correct.

Dr.

Perricone is an amazing, amazing doc, scientist.

And he was a pioneer of the, of what we're doing here right now.

Our customers, they call our brand the Mediterranean diet for your skin.

- [Frank] Other future projects of the Del Papa family include using part of their land for agritourism.

- Well, you see a nice place obviously in that is not far from Rome.

So next goal would be linking the olive farming along with the territory and with the hospitality as well.

So my next goal would be having tourism and pushing and promoting the olive tourism in this area.

That would be the ultimate goal.

So having a great product, people here coming, enjoying, and rather than selling a barrel of extra virgin, they can feel and get the vibe of the environment and at the same time get a little bit of a history of this place.

- And I love that because at the end of the day, if you can experience the land, if you can experience the tree then you're growing a deeper connection than just buying a bottle from the shelf.

- It's great.

- [Fil] That's what we call a holistic approach to the world of olive oil, healthy for the body, the mind, and the soul.

Now it's on to Tuscany where olive oil has coexisted with wine for centuries.

(upbeat music) - [Frank] Welcome to the famous region of Chianti in Tuscany, where we come upon the farm called Torre Bianca in the small village of (speaks foreign language).

Beyond the long rows of grapevines and extensive olive groves, we find the longtime home of Marco Mugelli, the godfather of modern olive oil production.

- [Fil] Today it is the children of Mugelli Marta and Mateo were carrying on their father's enormous legacy.

- We and Matheo, my brother, we are the third generation because my grandparents built this farm and villa in the late sixties, because they wanted to move from Florence.

- [Frank] Their father founded ANAPOO, the National Association of Professional Olive Oil Tasters.

He innovated olive oil extraction systems to retain optimum aromas, flavors, and health benefits.

- First of all, he is my father and he is a man that he probably gave us olive oil before milk.

- He was obsessed.

- Yes.

Yes exactly, he was obsessed.

And he had a lot of passion and he spent all his life for the olive oil and how he became Marco Mugelli.

- Yeah big personality.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

And with the-- - Trial and error.

- Yeah, with the ministry.

I remember when he used to go to Rome, at the ministry.

Telling, "No.

Things must be like this.

Not like that."

- So always fighting for higher quality.

- Always fighting.

A lot of passion and-- - Belief, determination.

- Yes, yes.

- [Frank] Mugelli was a fearless critic of fraud in the olive oil industry.

Since much of the world's olive oil is not pure, he fought for testing and regulation, something that exists in Italy today in part because of his determination.

- And I know, I know, maybe this is embarrassing.

I know you're probably not gonna say it, but I'm gonna say it.

I think the world of quality olive oil would not be here today.

Like 100%.

We would not be having these conversations.

We would not be tasting olive oils that we're tasting today if it wasn't for your father.

Mateo shows us the family's method of milling, which uses a vacuum to improve the extraction of polyphenols.

The oils that are obtained through this process retain a greater antioxidant level.

Not to mention a more flavorful taste.

- We have a lucky for the Mediterranean diet.

No, the people speak Mediterranean diet.

The Mediterranean diet, the most important is the olive oil.

Really.

- Okay, we start with one glasses, just simple tasting.

- [Frank] Marta is doing her part to uphold the family tradition.

As the president of IROOR, the International Association of Olive Oil in Restaurants, she and her organization are committed to spreading the culture of extra virgin olive oil through education.

- [Fil] (speaks foreign language), members of IROOR and ANAPOO are pairing food and olive oil together to find the perfect match.

More essential than wine pairing, olive oil is an ingredient.

So it's important at the very least, to recognize a defective product.

- Let's summarize that.

So basically we're saying that the first oil is probably not the best pairing for it.

- Saying it's a good pairing.

Maybe not the perfect pair.

- Right, not the perfect pair.

- [Marta] If an olive oil is good or not with the nose.

- [Frank] Nose so true.

- [Marta] And the mouth.

- It's so true, it's easy, it's easy.

- The nose and everyone can realize if that olive oil is good or not.

- The same way we go to the fish monger, the fish smells.

You don't buy it.

You just know when the olive oil smells good, I mean, we talk about fraud a lot.

We talk to me, the biggest fraud is that in America, we are just used to consuming olive oils that our rancid, we are used to the taste of a bad oil.

But once you realize it, you don't go back.

One taste changed my life.

- [Marta] Yeah, right.

- [Frank] Speaking of taste, there's another family in Tuscany who pioneered the importance of tasting.

Enter the Pruneti family.

Paolo and Gionni.

These two brothers who inherited the olive oil business from their dad are not satisfied in just making premium extra virgin olive oil.

What would be the sense, unless the consumer knows the difference.

- 15 years ago, nobody speak about the tasting olive oil.

And so we start to speak and to teach the people how taste olive oil.

- Is it, do you think it's because you grew up in an area with, it's so wine related, Chianti is known for its wine.

Maybe the switch, the, it turns like, wait, we're doing this with wine.

Why aren't we doing this with olive oil?

Is that because a lot of people haven't done it, why?

- Why, this is very complex question.

Because probably when you drink wine, you smile.

- That's right.

- At the people.

But I can tell that also, when you use good olive oil, you smile because you're tasting the mouth, you feel green, fresh and, oh, this is good for me.

So there is also the name of the olive, or people know the name of the wine.

You know Sangiovese or people know Sangiovese, but nobody does know the olive.

No, no.

(indistinct crosstalk) - [Fil] It's beautiful.

Things are starting to change.

People are starting to talk about it - [Frank] Today this young couple from South Africa is getting a great lesson on the different flavors and intensities of olive oil.

- More quality more like probably (indistinct).

And we give a little schedule with the name of the different flower, like green apple, green banana, radicchio, artichoke.

- So you know people are experiencing.

- The people are experiencing green and understand the different flower, which one.

- That's great.

- And they write the name.

So, for them, they discover something and the people are happy to know this.

- [Fil] Of course, we can't forget that we are in the land of Chianti where every year thousands of tourists flock to the area to taste the Italian red wine with the famous DOCG stamp.

- [Frank] But now, in order to highlight the importance of provenance and varietal in olive oil, Gionni Pruneti champions the same stringent guidelines using a DOP stamp, which stands for Protected Designation of Origin.

(Gionni speaks foreign language) Besides the beauty obviously of Tuscany, which is singular, what I've observed is that multi-generational families dedicating their entire lives to this pursuit of olive oil, four, five generations.

It's really incredible.

- It is amazing.

And one big thing though is that tradition, this is beautiful.

Four generations is a long time, but because it's traditional, and this is a mistake that we make a lot, traditional is not synonymous with quality.

All of these families have to face against their, all anchors of history.

Their families to kind of give us extra virgin olives of a way higher quality, which is not the same thing as saying olive oil.

- Which in this region leads you to the DOP significance of like, what they've been doing with wine is ensuring that it's a certain level.

- It's a sense of pride and belonging of going, hey, this is what we used to do.

This is what we're doing.

And I mean, in Tuscany was one of the cradles for innovation.

We have to think some of the research that went into realize the level of extra virgin olive oils that we're getting today.

- [Frank] Yeah.

After visiting the Mugelli and Pruneti families, Fil had one more surprise up his sleeve for me.

- [Fil] Welcome to Asidia, one of our rescued groves in the heart of Tuscany.

Many years ago, I decided to dedicate a good portion of my life to ensuring that no olive grove was ever abandoned.

- So as you were walking through this right now, what's your reaction?

What's your feeling right now?

Every time you come back here?

- I mean, right now, for me anyways, there's a sense of crazy emotion and almost shivers going through it 'cause I mean, three years ago when we started working on this grove, it was an impenetrable forest.

I mean, this grove has been abandoned for 25, 30 years, more or less.

And then it was a fire that basically took everything out.

But as you can see, there's, a lot of these trees are, most of 'em, it's all (indistinct) olive trees.

These trees are all thriving right now.

They're full of olives.

They've regained of energy, showing again, the resilience of the olive tree.

- [Frank] Fil and his partner, Andrea Paia, spent three years bringing this olive grove back to life.

But for Fil, it's more than just about olive oil.

It's about helping a community sustain itself.

Obviously, as you're driving through here, it wasn't the only abandoned in this region.

We have a lot in Tuscany, right?

- Oh, I mean, yeah.

And it's a reason why this mission and this project started, I mean, it's hard to believe that we got Florence at our shoulders, huge tourist hotspot.

And about 66% of the area is abandoned.

- [Frank] By producing a great extra virgin olive oil.

Fil and Andrea are helping the community reconnect to their land, their food, and their history.

- We respect the natural output of the tree.

We don't push the tree, we don't attack the trees.

We try to get what we can out of them, in harmony with them.

And that's it.

- Well, and let's not let it slip by that if you are buying high quality olive oil, you're not only getting a great experience, but you're supporting this.

- That's right.

- This type of community.

- That's right.

You're keeping it alive.

- Right, right.

Alright, we've given people a lot of information in this show.

I've learned a lot.

But when I go to the grocery store, bottom line, what am I looking for?

Here's a bottle.

What should I be looking for?

- Okay number one, we have to remember that extra virgin olive oil is a fresh product.

So you want to conserve it as much as you can.

You want a dark bottle, ideally in glass.

You wanna protect it from light, try to avoid plastic, try to avoid tins.

You want to have one of the most important things.

You wanna have a harvest date on it.

Again, fresh product.

You wanna know when it was created and crafted.

- What about the cap?

- The cap you want, obviously you can't see it at a grocery store at home, but you can see it at home.

You want a cap that will try to reduce the amount of oxygen that gets into the bottle and avoids, that you can't break it, so you can't refill it in case that you're at restaurants.

You want to have as many certifications as you can.

Now, having a DOP certification lets you know that it comes from an area, it's protected, and there's analysis, more testing done to it.

- What about filtered or unfiltered?

Should I go for?

- 100% filtered.

You wanna stay clear from any unfiltered olive oil, it's a marketing scheme to speak to art, like being artisanal.

But in reality it helps the oxidation, speeds up the oxidation of the oil.

- Okay.

And I see a lot of bottles with a lot of fancy Italian names.

What's, is that, is that where I should be going?

- Great question.

They're cool.

They sound great.

But you wanna be avoiding things like extra light olive oil, light extra virgin olive oil.

Anytime that you see anything but extra virgin olive oil, it is most likely (speaks foreign language) oil.

Basically unfit for human consumption that has been refined, blended with some olive oil and sold as olive oil.

- I bring it home, I've opened it.

How long do I have to use it and where can I store it?

- Okay, you're gonna bring it home.

You're gonna look at the cap, you're gonna smell it, you're gonna taste it, hopefully tastes delicious.

Once you open it, you got about four to six weeks before you start kind of starting to lose some of the natural benefits of that oil.

And if you're not gonna open it, you can keep it in the dark away from the heat.

We tend to put it by the stove, try to keep it in a dark place, and at that point it can last if it's fresh enough from harvested, 12, 16, 18 months, no problem.

(upbeat music) - We decided to end our Italian trip in a flavorful Florentine celebration with a meal at highly acclaimed Ristorante 588, where Chef Andrea Perini makes olive oil the star of the show.

(Andrea speaks foreign language) Oh my god.

Heyyyyyy!!

(upbeat music) - [Fil] From fine dining and local pizzerias to skincare and healthy living to agritourism and regional traditions, olive oil is the fundamental connector of the Mediterranean culture.

Here's to the great tree that transcends borders, languages, and religions, and has created nourishment for thousands of years.

- [Frank] Now it's time for us to head home and continue the adventure as we explore the multitude of possibilities and flavors in The World of Olive Oil.

(singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (gentle music) (upbeat music)