Insider’s Italy : Olive Oil Season — And a Dowry at Alitalia

In the days when one could still carry liquids onboard planes, I rarely flew between my Rome and New York Insider’s Italy offices without at least one three-liter can of olive oil in my hand luggage.

Once, I was caught by the Alitalia check-in staff, who eyed my bulging carry-on — containing two such cans — as I wheeled it determinedly to the desk. Its weight was double the permitted limit, but thinking quickly, I announced, “It’s my dowry.” Skeptically, the Alitalia woman lowered her glasses and looked me over. “Your dowry?” “Yes,” I said. After a long pause — and one of those quintessentially Italian looks, half suspicion and half theater — she let me pass.

Exactly a year later, I found myself at the same desk, with the same woman, and again, two three-liter tins of olive oil (it was the new season oil of 1998). “Again?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. “We’ve been through this before.” “Yes,” I replied, “but I’ve since divorced… and am remarrying.” A brief silence. Then, wishing me better luck this time, she waved me through.

These oils, after all, are not just liquids — they are liquid gold.

Remarkable people are making and sharing these extraordinary olive oils, and this season, you could join them.

Pamela Sheldon Johns, for example, on her Val d’Orcia farm Poggio Etrusco, offers a five-day tree-to-table olive oil program in mid-October (learn more here). She’s already fully booked this year, so mark your calendar for next.

Several of our favorite inns and villas across Sicily, Tuscany, and Umbria welcome our clients to take part in their olive harvests.

In all seasons — and while supplies last — they offer their estate-produced extra virgin olive oil either onsite or by mail.

Maine chef Sara Jenkins, who owns a Tuscan farmhouse with an olive grove, has in the past organized olive oil programs with her mother, Nancy Harmon Jenkins. Sara wrote beautifully about their olive season here: The Family Olive Oil. And if you don’t yet own Nancy’s Virgin Territory: Exploring the World of Olive Oil, you’re missing an extraordinary guide — a must-have, rich with knowledge from decades spent living in Mediterranean olive country.

Pressing begins in Sicily in about five weeks.

Over the course of the following month, our friends and other excellent producers will hand-pluck — or gently shake down — olives from their trees, rushing them to the press before oxidation can begin.

Tasting oil that is mere minutes old is among life’s most exquisite pleasures. As friends from one of our favorite Tuscan educational experience companies so rightly say: “No sentence can properly describe this amazing experience; the only way to truly understand it is to live it.” This is no exaggeration. Watching the process from tree to that green-golden elixir on your fettunta is something every olive oil lover must do at least once.

In past years, we’ve strapped traditional straw baskets to our waists or used stout sticks to beat the olives from their branches. Our children have climbed into olive trees over a thousand years old, reaching fruits that only small, nimble pickers could access.

Soon, we’ll be visiting some of our favorite olive estates ourselves.

It’s not too late to take part in the olive harvest this year.

Would you like us to tell you how?  www.insidersitaly.com