Tre Colline oil is a balanced, harmonious and sweet DOP from the hills of Brindisi.
Some would say that the region of Puglia (known to the English as Apuglia), the long strip of land that forms the heel of the Italian boot, is the home of Italian olive oil.
It is true that 60% of Italian oil comes from this area but most of it is made without respect for the true traditions and pours out of huge industrial plants to be shipped in tankers and mixed with oils from other regions to fill the cans and bottles that line your supermarket shelves.
The olives are pressed in huge hydraulic machines and heated
and tortured to get every gram of what they can give. |
So when a trained and sensitive master oil maker like Armando Balestrazzi sets out to press, make and blend a finely balanced table oil in the traditional manner and exclusively from the wide range of olives grown on the 180 hectares of his centuries old fields around Ostuni you had better be ready for something special.
After days spent travelling through the wondrous ancient olive groves and tasting the innocuous oily liquids that are produced by the massive industrial plants we were more than ready for what the master had to offer us and what a pleasure it was when we had finished visiting his old mill and seeing the fields, to at last |
taste a real Puglian oil.
The sophistication and refinement of this oil explodes on the taste buds and you know this is how God meant olive oil to be.
In his centuries old fortified farmhouse Armando has put together a blend from the oil of the old salentina trees with the newer frantoio, pesciolina and other varieties that all grow on the slight hills around the farm. This blend meets the rigorous DOP (the olive oil equivalent of DOCG for wine) standards of the hills of Brindisi authority and makes a delightfully equilibrated oil that can be used equally well on salads or meats, or for extraordinary light frying.
This oil is a true taste of how the top olive growers of the area have made Puglian oil the most renowned in Italy .
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