Dominique's olive trees, bistecca at Acquachetta, a note on Monticchiello

Last Saturday, as we were moving into the Montepulciano apartment, we were invited to go on an agricultural field trip. The Al Poggiolo apartments had been handed down to Elena and Margherita from their mother. Dominique is Elena’s husband. Two years ago Dominique was negotiating the purchase of the property south of Montepulciano, two adjoining former farms. The farm houses had already been sold without the land and Dominique was seeking to take possession of both now-houseless properties. He was successful. He immediately began to clear away underbrush and later that year harvested olives from the olive trees on the farmland to make olive oil.

Last year he found success selling his olive oil in Paris where, evidently, they have a taste for the fruitier, richer olive oil from Tuscany; French olive oil, in contrast, is quite light. He is also selling his olive oil to a Tuscan restaurant in Hokkaido, Japan. (It must be one of the few Tuscan restaurants there!) This year Dominique is looking to produce more high quality oil in the future with the planting of 600 new olive trees. 

Walking across the north side
of the property

This is an interesting change in Dominique’s life. He is a mostly-retired-but-not-quite-retired communications executive who has gardened for relaxation. The dabbling has been expanded into a business called Santolivo! (The website is currently in French and Italian. Click on the links anyway; you’ll enjoy what you see.)

Monday morning we drove south from Montepulciano through the town of Chianciano. Along with us were two other Al Poggiolo guests, a couple who have a dairy farm in northern France. Dominique promised that the tour of his olive orchard would be in two languages. He was good to his word, flipping back and forth between French and English.

Ancient terraces that had been
overgrown

The property is on north and south sides of a large hill. We parked on the north side and had a lovely view of the town of Chianciano across the valley. As we walked across this largely dormant side of the property, Dominique explained that the north side was too cold and too windy for olives. Animal feed crops had been planted on the north side.

We walked along a dirt road and approached the top of the hill. Dominique had discovered terraces, centuries old, that had become overgrown. He cleared the north-facing terraces but had no plans to grow olives there.

Soil prepared for new olive trees

We crossed over the crest of the hill and saw olive trees in all directions. We also saw newly turned earth and three workers setting up bamboo poles to steady the small olive trees that would be planted in the next days. The small, 4 foot tall trees would also have to be protected against deer, a problem in this area for people who plant olive trees.

There are many kinds of
olive trees

Olive trees prefer dry, sandy soils and the conditions on the south side of the hill were ideal for the olive trees that were long established and for the 600 new trees that are to be planted. Dominique took us around the existing olive trees, explaining that there are many varieties of the olive trees in Italy. Spain has 15 different kinds of olive trees, Greece a similar number, Italy has 350 different kinds of olive tree. He showed some of the varieties including some very, very old olive trees that are still productive.

Setting up support poles

Dominique explained that the harvest takes place in late October, after the olives have turned from green to brown or red, depending on the variety, but before the olives drop of their own accord from the tree. Nets are spread under each tree and a tool with flexible teeth “combs” through the branches to pluck the olives off the tree and onto the nets below. The olives are taken the same day to the frantoio, the olive oil mill, for crushing and the olive oil is held in stainless steel tanks at a constant temperature topped with pure nitrogen so the oil will  store without degrading.

Many of the poles are set

Workers have to be summoned at short notice for this sprint from olives on the trees, to olives in the nets, to olives at the mill, and finally olive oil in the tanks. The harvested olives are never stored overnight; they are milled into oil the same day. 

Dominique says that he pays the workers ... in olive oil.

Explaining the plan for the
new olive trees

Dominique is working with agronomists at the University of Pisa to devise natural methods for controlling the olive fly, the pest that preys on the olives themselves. They are also experimenting with new methods for trimming the trees in the spring. Most Italians trim olive trees extensively and columns of smoke rising from burning piles of olive tree trimmings are an typical sight in the Tuscan countryside in the spring. Dominique and the agronomists at Pisa believe that the common practice of trimming is excessive and decreases output of fruit and, eventually, oil. Dominique’s trees look less aggressively trimmed.

Young olive trees have
 shot up form the decaying
 but still vital trunk.

This pathway was overgrown with
brush. It had been used to cart
away  the harvested olives.
It may be used for
 that purpose again.

Bistecca at Acquachetta

After an interesting morning tramping around the countryside, we returned to Montepulciano for lunch. We had been looking forward to a visit to a small local restaurant called Acquachetta. This restaurant is known for its specialty, chianina beef. The animals are raised in the Val di Chiana which is just north of Montepulciano and the meat that they produce is tender and delicious. Acquachetta is a narrow space and the kitchen is at the end and raised. The star attraction of the restaurant sits under a spotlight on a butcher’s block in full view of the diners. 

We enjoyed our steak or, as Tuscans refer to it, our bistecca.


For a better description of the same restaurant and the same experience, see this link.

This morning (Wednesday) was cool and clear, very clear. We drove around Montepulciano on our way to take pictures in the countryside north of the town. As we drove around Montepulciano, a pickup truck passed in the other direction with a load of young olive trees. Even though the truck drove by us quickly, the driver looked familiar. He was smiling as he drove south toward Chianciano.




We posted earlier about the Battle of Monticchiello and the barely averted elimination of the town's population in April 1944. We were in Monticchiello again today (Please feel free to guess why we were there again.) and we met two people, a shop owner and his 88 year old father who was one of the people lined up at the city wall by the Germans in 1944.


Dominique mentioned that there are towns in the Apennines north of Florence which are empty today because of whole-town executions carried out by the Germans in World War II. The people of Monticchiello escaped a real danger and it was not a scene from a war movie.