olive tree on Lake Garda

The olive tree is an evergreen tree that can reach 20 meters in height; the trunk is often twisted, cracked and hollow to the point that it can appear, after years and in some cases, as the union of several different trunks. The leaves are opposite, leathery, oval, glossy, dark green on the upper page, whitish on the lower one. The flowers are small, white-green. The fruit, with a high oil content, is a drupe of oval shape and greenish to black-purplish colour when ripe. The olive wood, hard, yellow with brown veins, is used to make furniture. It is also an excellent fuel. The olive tree climbs up to 300 meters and more from the lake level.
This plant, in addition to its fruits, gives man another important service, together with the cypress trees that stand out in large numbers; it contributes to the creation of a fascinating agricultural landscape and, above all, stops the continuous erosion of soils that every year depletes the cultivated areas at higher altitudes. Prehistoric findings demonstrate the existence of the ancestor of the olive tree in Italy since the Tertiary period, about one million years ago. The mass of water of Lake Garda mitigates the climate and allows the growth of otherwise Mediterranean plants, including olive trees that acclimatize so well that the east coast of Lake Garda is called "the Riviera of Olives". On the lower slopes of the mountains, on the hills and in the plains along the lake the olive tree finds favourable conditions to grow flourishing: the mountains protect it from cold winds and the lake is a vital source of heat. Particularly suitable for olive growing is the gravelly soil and often covered with a layer of clay mixed with sand. The hills surrounding the lake are dotted with the unmistakable light green of the olive trees more extensive than the dark green of the cypresses. Unlike other crops, such as vines, which engage the farmer almost all months of the year, the olive tree leaves the grower some breathing space, especially in summer and autumn.
The list of the works on the olive trees of Lake Garda, which an anonymous factor drew up in the first half of the eighteenth century, is therefore transformed into a more general review of agricultural activities. It was only in November that everything was ready for the now imminent olive harvest, which began in the same month and ended in the following month and for the production of the oil. The long stairs were prepared to pick the fruit with the hands, the presses were put back in order, and the special bags used in pressing were repaired or packed. The latter took place during the winter months, after the olives, cleaned from the leaves, had been piled up for some time to rest, usually in wooden boxes or heaps covered with rags. In the spring, apart from the restoration of the masonry (the so-called marogne) that supported the terraces, all the care was directed to the plants, which had suffered the rigidity of winter. After the possible ploughing of the field, the soil was hoeed and removed around the roots also to detect possible diseases, and manure was spread; 19th century agronomists fertilized during the autumn to take advantage of the rains. Together with pruning and cleaning the small superfluous branches, the farmer proceeded to 'medicate' the olive tree, removing any diseased parts from the stem and large branches; a delicate operation to guarantee, among other things, the more or less regular growth of young plants.
The most common variety of olive tree on the western shore is the Casaliva, but there are also Drizzar, Frantoio, Leccino and Moraiolo. Until around the mid-19th century, oil production in the Veronese area was carried out exclusively by means of the ancient large lever press, called torcolon, or the small screw press. The torcolon, according to the brief description of Gaetano Pellegrini (1870) was a second kind of lever, consisting of one, two or more large wooden beams, from eight to twelve meters long. The fulcrum, which could be raised and lowered, was formed by four wooden columns between which one of the ends of the lever entered; two or three metres away was the resistance, that is the mass of the ground olives, in special bags. The other end of the lever was equipped with a mother-of-pearl screw, on which the screw was positioned vertically over a moving pin. This is one of the various types of presses used since ancient times for winemaking or oiling, which have come down to us through a series of non-substantial modifications. Just a few decades ago, before the last war, there were numerous examples, especially in southern Italy. The traditional production technique basically involved three operations: a preliminary milling, and two (or more) pressing. Before passing the olives through the torcolon they were ground (more or less a quintal at a time) in the mill, a heavy round millstone placed vertically and moved by man or animals, which rolled on a pure stone plane around a vertical axis. The vertical grindstone, turning on the horizontal plane called sotanna, crushed the olives and reduced them to a homogeneous, flowing and oily looking paste; This then gathered by the mugnajo (i.e. the torcolotto) on the pestrino, the wide and slightly inclined part that surrounds the sotanna and forms a single body with it, it wetted and amalgamated with lukewarm water (maximum 25°) and then placed in bags of hemp rope, rush or bark (called oil cages) to be placed on the torcolone. Unlike other regions, where more modern systems had become established, this rudimentary tool almost always did not allow to avoid a certain crushing of the stones, whose oil mixed with that of the pulp.
According to the Agricultural Catechism of Ciro Pollini, the owners of large olive groves should have two millstones, one grooved or grooved to obtain the best oil, the other not grooved to crush the stones and form with them a paste to be added to the pomace after the pressing of the virgin oil. The one that dripped, by virtue of its weight, from the olive paste ground without breaking the stones, and placed above the inclined surface was not deteriorated by the broken bone, nor by the hotter or boiling water used for subsequent pressing. In the face of a loss in terms of quantity there was a substantial gain in quality, in fact the flavor did not take that unpleasant characteristic that has of the earthy.
To squeeze the dough, five or seven sacks of ground olives were usually filled and placed under the press one on top of the other in two castles (two-three or three-four sacks), placing the taller castle in front of the smaller one, i.e. on the lever application side. The pressure had to take place very slowly, and only when it was such that it was barely enough to release oil together with the water of vegetation and crushed olive particles, the sacks were pushed back a little, increasing the pressure itself; then the two castles were reduced to one, watering the outer surface of the sacks with hot water from time to time. A good "torcolotto" was able to provide a slow and gradual pressure, to give time for the oil in the centre of the sacks to reach the circumference, and for the oil in the circumference to slide into the special container.
Once the first pressing was finished, which provided the best oil, the pomace was removed from the sacks by placing it on the pestrino of the mill and kneading it with boiling water. This product was regrinded and then pressed again to obtain a lower quality oil. The same operations were repeated a third time, with boiling water in order to produce the oil of bones, used for lighting, saponification or other industrial uses. Some producers, as Pellegrini reports, did not abandon the pomace of the third pressure (sometimes used as combustible material or fertilizer) but subjected it to a screening, on the pestrino, to separate the broken stones, kneaded it with boiling water, and ground it (masenar i rebiotti) and then pressed a fourth time: the oil thus obtained was of low quality and was collected separately.
The most prudent producers separated the virgin oil of the first pressure from those of the second and third, altered by boiling water. The current use made them all mix together, to obtain a greater gain. In the course of the eighteenth century the torcolon was gradually abandoned, especially in the inland hilly areas due to the death or poor yield of the olive groves as a result of the changed environmental conditions and crop conversion. Already in the first half of the century in the district of Caprino you can see reduced to other uses, or destroyed, the old oil mills, and inoperable many stones to break the olive tree and squeeze the juice. After 1850 the major production centers began to make use of new, more modern presses with vertical pressure iron screws: where the improved presses appeared, the ancient Torcoloni, whose number is decreasing every day more and more and it is to wish that they would stop completely. For example, in Malcesine there were twenty-one old presses, reduced to four after the appearance of a steam press, one hydraulic and one driven by oxen, but also in Torri and Bardolino the renewal of the machinery was now proceeding rapidly.
The large truncated or cylindrical stones used as a counterweight for the wooden worm screw that had to lower or raise the large beam, can still be seen in many towns in Valpolicella and in towns on Lake Garda, scattered among the fields in support of a cross or walled in some old building.
Some olive growers used to use the torcoletto, a press much smaller than the ancient torcolon, from which it differed, usually, in the vine, which was fixed: the pressure was exerted above the beam that crushed the olive paste with a mother screw made of strong wood, equipped with iron ears into which the rods entered to make it turn. In the thousand and nineteenth century it was mainly small landowners and sharecroppers who used this tool, for the production of small quantities for domestic use or small trade: there is a precise correlation between social hierarchy and 'means of production'. Different and more elementary were, in fact, also the technical procedures. The olives, piled up a couple of days before pressing, were heated for a few minutes in hot water and placed in a large wool sack, about four metres long by one metre wide. Lying on top of the lower, slightly inclined surface of the glass press, the bag full of olives was pressed with bare feet - like grapes - by one or more men, called Metti or pixies, who held on to horizontal ropes or suspended ropes with their hands. The operation corresponding to the grinding was therefore carried out directly by the man.
When the Metto felt that the pulp of the olives was detached from the stones, he would fold the sack in half lengthwise, always with the feet, and rewind it, then subjecting it to the action of the press, without adding water. The oil thus obtained was perfect and judged better than that of the first pressing of the torcolone with the olives pressed at the millstone. Then the operations were repeated: pressing with the feet (this time with the addition of water), and pressing with the torcoletto, until the stones were stripped and the pulp completely dry; also this edible oil. Emptied the sack, he started again. The oil mixed with the sludge coming out from the sack was deposited in a tub, from which, after some time, the one floating above the sludge itself was removed, and passed in the brente, placed in a heated room (stove), for the usual procedures of purification and clarification. To give an idea of the rudimentary techniques adopted by small producers, it is enough to remember that in order to heat the oil to be purified in the most economical way, some producers used to bury the containers in the manure of the stables. This practice was now almost abandoned, but not so much because of the enormous damage that could be caused to the oil by the gaseous emanations of the decomposing manure as because of the risk that the oxen that had been undone during the night threw themselves on the containers, driven by instinct, and by drinking a considerable quantity of oil, would become seriously ill or even perish. Of course, the torcoletto was also often used on behalf of third parties. In these cases, the olive grower paid the owner a modest fixed fee (regardless of the olive yield) of one pound of oil (according to some the thin pound of 0.333 kg, according to others the coarse pound of about 0.500 kg) for each fulling (three quarters of an olive equal to 28 kg). It was much more frequent that the production of oil with the torcoletto took place within the relationship between owner and sharecropper, regulated by oral agreements. The first one was responsible for the maintenance of the torcoletto, of his own property, and of the tools, except the bag of wool, bought in half with the sharecropper or worker, the latter was responsible for the operational responsibility of the oil production and the work at the bar of the press together with the man provided by the owner.
Given its characteristics, it is not surprising that the torcoletti (not susceptible to evolution in an 'industrial' direction, suitable for family-sized companies: and in the Veronese hills the paternalistic relationships, inspired by collaboration between the bosses and Morenti, last well into the twentieth century) have survived longer than the torcoloni. Significantly, the inhabitants of these farms sold the remaining stones from the extraction of oil to the new oil mills equipped with bottlenecks capable of extracting the washed oil from the pomace. The stones could also be used as combustible material.
The preparation of the oil was certainly not finished after the pressing of the olives: the good quality of the product also depended on the subsequent delicate processes of purification and clarification and correct preservation. In certain aspects, indeed, it was precisely in this sector that there was more room for technical improvements and for a more rational production organization. Machinery with low technological content and traditional practices consolidated over the centuries characterize the situation on Lake Garda and determine a very slow evolution.
The liquid obtained from the pressure of the olives was deposited in a very deep vat, called brenta (the term indicated the largest size for oil, in use until and even after the French Revolution). In some oil mills this large container was equipped with a semi-cylindrical channel, called pissa-an-pè or pissacan in dialect, into which the sludge deposited on the bottom flowed and rose (freusa, frusa in the language of Lake Garda: the froxa of medieval documents). A hole drilled outside the brenta at the pissa-an-pè, made sure that the sludge was discharged into another container: in this way the oil remained on the surface in the tina, the one that was floating in the meantime, which was collected with a large, shallow ladle, a sort of tin plate (perhaps the ancient cada or caza). In spite of all the precautions, it was inevitable to pull up a little bit of sludge together with the oil: and therefore, in order to achieve a more complete purification, the oil was placed in special deep wooden tanks, the brentine, stowed well closed in a heated room or stove, where the purified oil rose to the surface and was again collected with a ladle. Finally, the oil could be transported to the centenaries, the large stone tanks whose use has been attested since the Middle Ages: here the oil, if it was not immediately sold, rested for a few months, once again depositing all the lees on the bottom. As an alternative to this technique, which took a relatively long time, another, much quicker one could be practiced: instead of bringing the oil into the stove immediately after removing it from the brenta, very hot water was poured into the oil, and after cooling it collected the oil that had come to the surface, which, however, at that point, had been damaged by excessive heat. Different opinions are expressed by the technicians also on other choices the use of filters for the clarification of the oil, instead of simple decantation; the adoption of wooden barrels circled in iron as an alternative to the use of wooden casks lined with lead (dangerous for oxidation), or terracotta jars (obviously fragile) for decantation. Nothing or almost nothing, in the process of preparing the oil, was lost: the experience of the farmers and producers valued, in addition to the oils of lower quality, any type of residue. All the sludge produced by the various pressures of the olives was gradually deposited, as we have seen, in a large open vat: it was called inferno. In it, after some time, other oily matter (about 2.5% of the total oil pressed in the mill) gained the surface, which, collected with a ladle, was put in the Brentini and subjected to the above mentioned purification processes. The oil thus obtained was called "d'inferno", it was of inferior quality, good for burning, for saponification, for wool and silk processing, and for industrial use. The sludge and the waters of hell, which according to some people made worms and pests die, became an excellent soil if well rested and mixed with two parts of earth, otherwise they were harmful (as was known for centuries) to olive trees and meadows. Others say that at the beginning of the millenovecento the dried sludge and the pomace were used on Garda lake to feed the fire needed for the oil-producing plant, while the waters of hell flowed down to the lake. The oil had to be transported at a non-hot temperature, taking care to fill the containers completely in order to avoid harmful agitation. In mountainous areas, goatskin wineskins (boghe) placed on the backs of pack animals proved to be functional, but since they transmitted a bad smell, it was preferred to use them for the lower oils. In the proclamations on the oil of Lake Garda there is talk not only of boghe, but also of cai and other amasi, i.e. vases (similar to those used for wine) and wooden barrels, used not only for journeys in the territory, but also for exports to the north and preferred to stuffed carboys. On the canteen pewter containers were used in the form of large bottles, with a long curved beak, then replaced by the cheaper tin-plated iron band cruets. In rural areas, the products for sale were processed on the farm. After the unification of Italy, thanks also to the new means of railway transport, the Veronese oil suffered the growing competition of the Ligurian, Tuscan and southern oil, which was copiously poured on the local market. In the long run the consequences were a reduction in the number of presses and their transformation: fewer plants, but bigger and more mechanized. The major production centres (Tuscany, Liguria, the Kingdom of Naples, Provence) introduced new types of millstones and presses, capable of processing a greater quantity of olives; it was also understood that the pressure exerted by the old lever presses, which were also used for a long time for the marc, did not guarantee that the olives would be processed.

Related Topics : Olive harvest and new oil on Lake Garda - Monastery of San Colombano - Olive tree on Lake Garda - Fragments of the history of Garda lake extra virgin olive oil