Madonna dell'Olivo

The story so far

Madonna dell'Olivo takes its name from a sixteenth-century sanctuary that still stands near the groves, tucked into the hills of Serre, in the province of Salerno, with views that run down toward the ruins of Paestum. Antonino Mennella started the operation in 2003, picking up a family olive-growing tradition that had gone quiet for around seventy years, working trees the family has always called century-old. What changed things was a meeting with Luigi Veronelli, the writer and gastronome who pushed Italian growers to think about single varieties and about pressing olives without the pit. Mennella built a small mill for the estate, continuous-cycle and cold-pressed, so the fruit moves from tree to press within hours and the oil comes out under nitrogen to keep it from turning. Four groves, four separate pressings: Rotondella, Carpellese, Carolea, and Itrana, the last one named Itran's after a cultivar whose roots go back to the Itri hills and the Aurunci mountains of Lazio, even though the trees here grow in Campania soil. It was the Itran's that took Best Extra Virgin Olive Oil of the Year at Flos Olei in 2022, the guide's top prize, out of an olive grove of just six hectares and about two thousand trees. Most of what the mill produces leaves Italy — the label turns up on shelves as far as Japan and Sweden.

From the public record: madonnaolivo.it · lucianopignataro.it · ilforchettiere.it