Every November I really need to find an old mill to …smell the aroma of the new extra virgin olive oil!
I said “I need” because without this sensorial deep experience I can’t start winter time: for me it’s the easier way to try to forget summer time & live the autumn mood at its best.
While I was inside this small, old mill run by a 83 years old lady, Jolanda, I was so sorry not being able to keep the aroma with me or put it in a jar as the precious nectar that it is the oil, or even to catch it with my mobile …this smell stays in my mind forever, it is a real experience I suggest not to miss. I’d love to share it with you, as it is really very deep & I simply love it!
The pressing is made old fashioned way, by big stones, only men at work around this lady who runs the business by herself: Iolanda & me we were the only two women there & I thought how much respect they had for her …Usually this is a man job & in fact it was her husband job since he died & Iolanda kept on doing this every season & now celebrated 50 years.
Not a big place you need to produce extra virgin olive oil: a small house, at the ground floor the machineries to press & extract the oil, at the first floor where to weight olives. Hard job indeed for people who bring their own olives & wait until the oil is ready because everyone us very jealous of its production & want yo be present to the pressing: a different variety if olives can bring another taste to oil & everyone treats the olives in a different way: organic, half organic, with some treatments …on every jar there is a name, even on olives!
Outside the house a mountain of mashed olives paste to be recycled.
Around the mill a lovely landscape of my Pistoia hills with the autumnal colours made me feel so lucky to be born here & still enjoying the real best top quality products coming from my region, Tuscany.
Enjoy my photos & try to imagine the smell please, otherwise next year book a tour with me to visit the mill & try the experience!
