Finding the perfect oil mill in Italy - new versus old-style

Picture two very different olive oil mills in the Italian countryside, both producing Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

One looks very old-fashioned:  Two massive stone wheels trundling round and round in a trough, mashing whole fresh olives into a pulp.  You can imagine a mule doing the work (though it's run by electricity now)..

In this mill, the pulp is smeared onto basket-weave discs, which are piled up into a tower and then squeezed from above by a hydraulic press until the juice drips out. Simple.

 

 

Hey presto - Extra Virgin Olive Oil!   This traditional mill is in the comune of Civitella Messer Raimondo, a small hilltop village 160 kilometres east of Rome, on the edge of a mountain range called the Majella, in the Chieti province of Abruzzo.

Take way the electricity and the hydraulic power, and this is essentially the way they've been making olive oil since pre-Roman times. Big stones, heavy weights.

Up the valley to mill number two, ten kilometres away.  Here everything is metallic, new and shiny.  No stones, instead a row of sealed chambers with glass windows where the olives have been macerated for an hour with blades. The mash is pumped into a torpedo-shaped steel centrifuge.

This spins so fast that the oil is forced out of the solid olive waste under enormous pressure .  A further spin to remove superfluous water, and pure Extra Virgin oil is trickling out through a steel pipe.

It's the modern way- every new olive oil mill is built to this design.  This is the Masciontonio mill at Caprafico, Chieti province.

Both methods comply with the legal definition of Extra Virgin Olive Oil - extraction by pure mechanical means, without any heat, chemicals or solvents ('first cold pressing').

So which is better - traditional or new-fangled?    The fresh oil from the two mills looks pretty much the same - green, thick and cloudy.  It may well taste and smell very similar.   Does one method of extraction consistently produce a higher quality of Extra Virgin Oil than the other?  Is traditional superior to new-fangled?  Or is modern the better way?

This is not an easy question - each style has its own proponents.  Yesterday we set out to find out.   Half the olives destined to become Stroud Green Olive Oil have gone to one type of mill, and half to the other.

Our own freshly-picked fruit, from the half acre of olive trees below Casa della Meridiana, has been sent to two modern centrifuge mills.  We'll be collecting the last of the pressed oil tomorrow, and we're expecting a yield of around 45 litres.

However to fulfil demand, we've sourced a further 50 litres of pure, just-pressed oil made by our next door neighbour, who swears by the traditional mill.  It's also excellent oil - and we've tasted it.  So will anyone be able to detect any difference in the way the two were milled?

They both look great so far.  Perhaps we'll be able to make a judgement at the olive oil tasting in Stroud Green next week.  Watch this space.