About the Oil
Bramasole extra-virgin olive oil is produced from olives grown in prime olive oil territory outside the town of Cortona, a little over 95 kilometers southeast of Florence. Our extra-virgin olive oil reflects the careful work in the grove and attention to timing that help preserve aromatic clarity. Rooted in the villa and olive groves of author Frances Mayes and her husband, Edward, Bramasole's reputation grew alongside Mayes's international best-seller, "Under the Tuscan Sun," and has continued through her subsequent books, linking the landscape around Cortona to a longstanding interest in Tuscan food culture.
From Frances:
The olive tree springs from the taproot of Mediterranean living. Over time, I've heard of olive oil being used for everything from stretch marks to kidney stones to coughs. After caring for a grove, it's impossible not to think of olive oil as a holy substance. The biblical references to anointing the body with oil had to have meant olive oil. Who first squeezed those bitter drupes and discovered the oil? She's our missing goddess or saint! She found the soul of the Mediterranean diet.
How to describe the distinct, polyphonic, greeny, assertive, fresh, piquant, sublime taste of just-pressed extra-virgin olive oil? Every year at harvest, I marvel at the punch it delivers to everything I cook. At this stage, just-pressed oil is bursting with health-improving properties, as well as that indescribable taste. Your cooking skills quadruple when you cook with the freshest oil available. Tuscans use great olive oil every day. When I first arrived in Tuscany, I was surprised to see Don Ferruccio, a local priest, eating an orange that he doused in olive oil and salt. That was a defining moment for me; I realized in one bite what I'd missed.
Our EVOO has tasting sensations of herbs, almond, green pepper, chicory, and olive leaf.
Our oil is, of course, extra-virgin which means that the acid content is less than 0.8%. Never buy any oil that is not extra virgin unless you need to oil hinges. The designation "light" or—ugh—"lite" means absolutely nothing, and cold-pressed means less than it used to. The machinery began to change over a decade ago and all high-quality olive oil such as ours is pressed with state-of-the-art equipment without the use of heat.
Many inexpensive "extra-virgin" oils sold in American stores are blends of oils that did not sell in their first year. If an extra-virgin olive oil from Italy is cheap, I'm 99% sure that something is amiss. When you know that a tree in Tuscany produces one liter, you understand that first-quality oil has to be expensive. So, look with care at the olive oils in grocery stores as well as in the fine cookware shops. Many verge on expiring and the labels are rife with misleading information! All you can read on the subject will arm you against buying a dreary product—an unholy mix or stale olive oil, or a lower-quality older oil, even if they are "extra-virgin." For the price of a dinner out, you can buy enough fine oil to last for months, oil that pushes your cooking from excellent to sublime!
Bramasole Olive Oil will remove all these caveat emptors. Here's the wonderful, enhancing oil you'll want for your house. Use it with confidence. Normal cooking heat does not destroy the qualities of good oil. Tuscans use it for frying, though you never read that in American cookbooks. Frequently they use olive oil instead of butter in baking. Fresh Tuscan oil has a kick, a tingly sensation, and a lively personality. With olive oil, you're not after the neutrality of other vegetable oils (or the chemical additives of refining processes), you want that clean life and spice and vibrancy that adds so much depth to your food. If you travel to Italy in the fall, visit a molino and taste the just-pressed oil—a revelation. Next best, order our expedited shipment that reaches you asap after the harvest. From massaging the newborn's umbilical cord to anointing the body for the shroud, olive oil always has been the essential ingredient of Italian life.
- Frances Mayes
