Gold of Capri

Nobody cared about them for a long time.

Yet, the green giants, ancient and generous, had not ceased to bear fruit. The good soil, the favorable exposure to the sun, the proximity of the sea and the water of the sky had kept them healthy, despite everything. And alone they had continued to serve the stunning beauty of unspoiled and forgotten views of the much-celebrated island. Until someone had remembered them again, of the large centuries-old olive trees in the costal lands of Anacapri, which in the past gave abundant harvests and large quantities of oil to families committed to cultivate them, challenging the imperviousness of the places.

That distant era is still testified by the memory of the elders. Which tell about the ten olive-mills where olives, harvested in many lands on the island still dedicated to agriculture, were transformed into thousands of liters of oil. Used also to light the lamps, a real treasure for the local people. Before everything changed, the olive mills were closed and the olive trees left space to something else, except the most marginal and difficult ones, overlooking the sea. Where, instead, time had stopped and olives had continued to grow and fall, uselessly, to the ground in autumn, among the wild herbs free to grow and multiply.

Only few years ago, someone had noticed those Anacapri lands. And those healthy olive trees, which deserved to be abandoned. “ Gianfranco D’Amato was the first to believe in it, four-five years ago. And then he involved us one by one, we had lands with olive trees, in a project which concerns the olive trees and the surrounding area.

And now we are about forty, working on a project of organic production which has fascinated us, for which we are learning and updating all together, under the leadership of committed professionals”.

For him, Vincenzo Torelli (in the picture), owner of the Columbus restaurant bar at the foot of Mount Solaro, it is a new adventure which he has left himself be conquered by, as shown by the enthusiasm and pride with which he tells about it..

As wine producers, they had to start from scratch, in Anacapri. But, perhaps, having had to face this commitment without specific competences was the incitement to always do more and always better, all together. Under the direction of the agronomist, who set up the recovery of the olive trees, they have launched the new era of organic extra virgin olive oil production: they called it “l’Oro verde” (the “Green gold”) of Capri. “We are proceeding step by step, year by year” - explains Vincenzo, who has put back into production the old family olive tree - We progress together, re-investing all the profits in the development of the project and sharing ideas, information, experiments and equipment, together with the competence that we acquire singularly. From the discovery of American yeasts to the battle against the olive flies, to the purchase of the delicate tree-shaker for the harvest, which we exchange according to needs. And then we had to find an oil mill, as there was no longer one in Capri. We found the one suitable for our project in Massa Lubrense: we bring the olives in the evening, immediately after the harvest, and the milling takes place during the day. But we are aiming to have again our own oil mill”.

The collective project/dream pursues the quality goal from the beginning. “In the past, quantity had its importance - Vincenzo wants to underline - We, on the other hand , have a very limited production, because we chose to pay attention to the great quality and we follow a rigorous disciplinary. Thanks to this, in a few years, we already have eight renown oils, of which four are Slow Food Presidium and one is mentioned in the “Gambero Rosso” guide (it literally means “”red prawn” guide and it is a guide to Italian wines, restaurants, hotels, bars, ice cream shops and so on). And the peculiarities of the different productions are enhanced, “because oil represents the territory and in in each land it acquires particular characteristics according to the exposure, which ripens the fruits before of after, for example”. If the production is a collective experience, the entire project of the “Oro verde” of Capri has taken on since the beginning a strong social connotation. The annual olive harvest has already become a community ritual, shared by entire families and by different generations. But then different initiatives of valorisation of the genuineness and healthiness of the product have arisen: the snack with bread and oil for children of schools, to educate them to a healthy nutrition, and a few months ago the gift of oil to mothers for the weaning of the newborns.
However, the use of oil continues for other particular productions, such as the “cioccolio” sweet and salty ice cream and beauty creams. Without forgetting the version with homemade oil of the famous “caprese salad”. But the development of the Oro verde project is the requirement for the recovery of the old olive trees and uncultivated lands. Therefore, it also became a determining factor for the protection of the landscape and for the environmental safeguard of the island territory. The olive trees have been the forerunner to a wider and more articulated process of ecological reconversion. Such as the return of the carob trees, chosen by the birds which keep the populations of insects in the olive trees under control, or the planting of water tanks in the grounds for migratory birds.
In the end, a way to rethink the relationship with the territory with a sustainability vision, which is also a guarantee for the future of young people. Some have already started taking care of other abandoned olive trees. And those of Pino dei Monaci area, with their four centuries of life, greet the now unstoppable change of the Oro verde.