The traditional olive harvest in Sabina takes place between the beginning of October and the end of January. It’s a choral event, that involves everyone, given how much the final product, extra virgin olive oil, is important to the local economy and culture. It thus represents a celebration, which can suggest a calendar page that is often not considered sufficiently with regard to a holiday in our area.
DOP (Protected Geographic Location) extra virgin olive oil, a Sabina excellence
Sabina virgin olive oil is a genuine, traditional product, which has always been made in Sabina since ancient times. The Romans knew it well and considered it amongst the best in the world. Today the techniques are refined, while scientific knowledge highlights its organoleptic properties and the characteristics that make it an ally of our health.
A strict disciplinary issued by the protection consortium indicates precisely the municipalities and territories involved in the cultivation of the relevant types of olives, their cultivation and harvesting times and transformation processes, with the aim of guaranteeing a unique olive oil that has a fruity and delicate, yet also intense, flavor. With a color that looks like gold and a taste with a fragrance of freshly squeezed olives.
Poggio Sommavilla, evidence of an ancient tradition
Collevecchio is amongst the list of municipalities involved in the olive harvest, in excellent company, however: there are just over thirty municipalities in the Rieti area involved, and fifteen in the province of Rome.
Nevertheless, if we mentioned earlier on that the Sabina area boasts an incredibly long history in the field of olive growing, Collevecchio in particular, can well boast a very close bond, as evidenced by an archaeological find of immense value, discovered in its Poggio Sommavilla hamlet. The excavations that were carried out starting from 1896 highlighted an ancient necropolis, and among the various finds an extraordinary artifact emerged, a small flask, also particularly important in terms of the history of the language, given the paleo-Umbrian inscription it bears. Today, the Poggio Sommavilla flask is exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, testifying the ancient and ancestral relationship of the inhabitants with the world of olive oil.
The olive harvest feast
The olive harvest is a moment of celebration; the moment in which the efforts and hard work in the olive groves are crowned and the precious fruits are sent to the mills. A time when families, including family members who have moved to the city, gather around the olive trees. A time in which the Sabina holiday farms, farms in general and mills open their doors to tourists, who are entrusted with tools and shown how to use them. The various steps involving the pressing of the olives are explained and, needless to say, delicious tasting sessions are granted.
Tourists are given the chance to learn something new, relax in the shade of the olive trees, eat well and stroll among the cobbled streets of the surrounding villages. What more could one ask for?
When you look out of the windows of Le Residenze del Borgo di Cicignano you cast your gaze on a pleasant companion made of cultivated fields and patches of land used as olive groves, from its comfortable and high vantage point. And, after being blessed at the sight, you can launch yourself on the area’s culinary specialties, which, without exception, never do without the raw material and the most famous Sabina product… olive oil.
