I’d like to wish all our Amelia Oil customers the very best for 2015. I also want to wish our producers the Suatoni Family best wishes for a great growing year for olives in 2015 because 2014 was a challenging year for most of the olive farmers in Italy, France and Spain–perhaps the worst year in the past four decades.

Blame it on global warming or the stars but it was a wet year in Italy at all the wrong times. Living in Vancouver we don’t think twice about a few clouds. In contrast, when it rains continually in Italy, it doesn’t make for happy olives. It does, however, produce near perfect conditions for the olive fly to thrive and burrow into the olives as they are developing–ruining the crop. This was the case this past year in most of Italy. Along with a few other problems, it was the worst year for the olive harvest since 1985 when there was a hard frost that killed many trees. The conditions were so bad this year that many farmers decided not to head to the presses to make oil. There is an enormous shortage all over Italy and the prices have sky rocketed.

I have been sitting here in Canada holding my breath and waiting for the news of what, if any, oil will be available and at what price and what quality. Francesco was able to press some oil but he had to purchase additional olives from a few neighboring farms in order to make an oil that meets his high standards. I was skeptical and concerned. It also does not help that this oil will also be more expensive than previous years. I felt it was necessary to taste it before committing to an order.

I happen to be  in France right now for the arrival of Rachel’s baby boy Félix, our first grandchild.  Francesco sent over a tin, and I tasted the oil and feel it is really quite good. I have placed an order. There will be a price increase but the new oil is on its way.

I think it’s important to support our farmers even in tough years. Agriculture is a tricky business–often at the mercy of the weather, something we just can’t control. It is even a bigger challenge for growers like the Suatonis who don’t rely on the use of chemicals to battle pests and disease. Let’s all hope that this past year was just an anomaly and that future harvests will be easier.

I’d like to thank my loyal Amelia Oil customers for their patience in waiting for the new oil. I think it will be worth the wait. I will post the prices and give you an update on the arrival date very soon.

Auguri per un felice 2015

There seems to be renewed talk these days about the fraudulent olive oil industry: much of what is labelled EVOO from Italy is in fact olive oil from other countries cut with other cheaper oils then shipped to unsuspecting buyers around the world.

The latest buzz is a New York Times article – slideshow titled “Extra Virgin Suicide”: The Adulteration of Italian Olive Oil featured in last Sunday’s issue. //nyti.ms/MmFwiR It very graphically simplifies what is a complicated problem for the olive oil industry and the consumer.

Author Tom Mueller in his book “Extra Virginity” and on his blog has exposed much of this fraud. He is sited as the source of the information on this NYT chart.

This topic of fraud and adulteration comes into question with so many foods we eat. It is frustrating to think we can’t rely on labeling to guide us in our food choices. The same often applies to organic and GMO foods. We want to make healthy choices and find it increasingly hard to figure out who or what to believe.

Personally, I think the safest way to go about making choices is to know where your food comes from. Local farmers markets are growing in popularity because they give us a comfort zone that the food they sell is being grown in a healthy way and not by big agri-businesses that are more about profit than quality. Supporting small farms is a better way to ensure you get more wholesome food.

With our Amelia Oil we help to support a small family owned and operated farm in Italy. Our producers the Suatoni family grow their own olives, without chemicals. We bring you their oil each year just as soon as they have it pressed. When we first started this business in 2007, fraud wasn’t even on the radar screen for us. We just wanted everyone to experience what fresh olive oil tasted like. It was the oil we tasted when we were on the farm in Italy and loved. We knew it wasn’t the same as what we were getting back at home off the grocery store shelf. Now we hear that much of what is on the grocery store shelves is not even the real deal let alone fresh.

All I can say is Amelia Oil is an extra virgin olive oil that is grown and pressed in Italy by farmers who take pride in their product – pure and simple, nothing added.

Francesco and Giuditta our producers tell us it has been an unusually rainy harvest season in Umbria this year. This has made the picking and pressing of the olives take a lot longer  than usual as they had to wait for some dry days to complete the task and the olives to ripen properly. Wet conditions make for plump olives but with less ratio of oil. It must have been frustrating for all the locals as well as they have to line up at the mill in order to get their olives pressed. Giuditta told me they were staying open 24 hours each day to get the job done. If the olives are wet they will develop mold and rot not producing a good oil. Who said farming was easy.

Originally we had hoped  to get the new fresh 2014 oil here before Christmas.  That plan went sideways when the weather failed to co-operate.

The good news is that in spite of the weather, our team in Umbria made bottling and shipping our oil a priority. They managed to put together our order in record time. I’m pleased to say that the Amelia Oil is on it’s way via ship to Canada as we speak with an estimated arrival of early January 2014.

Everything else this year went well during the growing season with adequate rain and no excessive dry spells. According to Francesco the Amelia Oil for 2014 will have a fresh green grassy taste that was perhaps lacking in the 2013 oil. He feels it is a more balanced oil in bitterness. It has a medium – intense fruitiness.

If you want to taste Amelia Oil at it’s peak flavor be sure a order some as soon as it arrives. I’ll be posting an arrival date on this site as well as on our Facebook page as soon as I can confirm.

I don’t often go on about the health benefits of olive oil because there is just so much written on this topic. I feel my customers are already convinced that it is good for them health wise in addition to tasting delicious. In other words, why preach to the converted. However, the recent flurry of press activity around the latest medical studies involving the Mediterranean Diet may have made you curious. The other day a friend of mine who is a doctor e-mailed me the link to the actual study and description of the diet  which I will include for you to have a look at if you have the time or interest. You will note they allotted  1 litre of olive oil per week for a family with instructions to use liberally.

The Mediterranean Diet study from the New England Journal of Medicine

Description of Mediterreanean Diet from the study

To briefly summarize the study – It concludes if you include lots of olive oil and nuts in your diet and stay away from meats, animal fats and processed foods you could greatly reduce heart disease compared to a low fat diet. What is a real Mediterranean Diet like you might ask. I thought I’d mention a book that does  a good job of explaining this diet and includes recipes.

The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook: A Delicious Alternative for Lifelong Health by Nancy Harmon Jenkins is an excellent book. Jenkins published her first Mediterranean Diet Cookbook almost two decades ago so this concept has been out there for quite awhile.

I also love Ottolenghi’s Cookbooks which give you lots of great recipes that would fit well with the Mediterranean diet philosophy. I love his book – Plenty which has delicious vegetarian recipes. There is also the well designed Ottolenghi  iPhone app which helps you plan delicious meals on the fly from your phone.