DOP Riviera Ligure Extra-Virgin Olive Oil is a product intimately tied to the tree it comes from and the territory where it grows.
In the Middle Ages, Benedictine monks improved the olive plant through careful selection, creating the Taggiasca variety, and taught the technique of “terracing” the mountains with dry stone walls (Maxéi), to create “bands” and recover arable land that only the foresight and fortitude of Ligurian farmers were able to make productive.
Much of the quality of DOP Riviera Ligure Extra-Virgin Olive Oil is due to the variety of plants (Taggiasca, Lavagnina, Pignola and other local varieties derived from the Frantoio variety) that, over centuries of adaptation to the area and climate of Liguria, provide a product with low acidity, light fruitiness and a sweet sensation that enhances the characteristics of foods without decisively changing them.
Producing quality oil in Liguria is an art.
Growers must deal with steep terraced soil, buffeted by unpredictable weather. So, keeping the olives healthy through to the harvest and delivering them quickly to the press, requires sacrifice, attention and, above all, passion.
Even the processing of the olives requires special care to avoid any distractions that affect the particularly delicate sensory properties of our oil.
The conservation of the oil, which is responsible for the “vitality” of the product, requires: carefully controlled temperatures, rooms and containers.
Unlike other oils on the market, the Protected Designation of Origin product is always subject to field controls, document audits and sensory and chemical-physical analyses and, only at the end of this control regimen, can it bear this prestigious Community mark.
Thanks to the collaboration between the Protection Consortium and the Certification Body, now consumers will also find a numbered label on bottles of DOP Riviera Ligure Olive Oil that provides traceability of the production chain.
