Part of our con­tin­u­ing spe­cial cov­er­age of the 2022 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition.Producers from cen­tral Italy were undis­puted pro­tag­o­nists at the 2022 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition. Once again, they earned many awards as a result of their care for the land and focus on the sus­tain­able use of resources.Olive grow­ers with a long story of suc­cesses were joined by first-time win­ners, all of whom are aware of the cru­cial role farm­ers play as pro­tec­tors of the envi­ron­ment.“We are thrilled to have won this pres­ti­gious award,” said Laurence Deprez Zenezini, of Cultura Viva, after receiv­ing a Gold Award for her Le Clarisse blend.“Our ref­er­ence mar­ket is the United States, and this pushed us to par­tic­i­pate in the NYIOOC, which is an impor­tant show­case for the inter­na­tional mar­ket,” she added.After liv­ing in many coun­tries around the world, she set­tled in Umbria with her fam­ily. “Last year, in June, we attended a course for olive oil tasters, and in October, we car­ried out our very first har­vest,” she said.Located in Collazzone, in the province of Perugia, her prop­erty includes a small ham­let with the for­mer monastery of the Poor Clares, from which the name of the oil comes and a farm­house sur­rounded by 40 olive trees. Another 600 plants of Moraiolo, Leccino and Frantoio, are spread over the hill below.“The first project was to recover this place,” Deprez Zenezini said. “Then we started prun­ing the trees doing con­sis­tent reform work. Last year, also due to weather issues, we har­vested 25 per­cent of the capac­ity of the grove.”They recently added a new plot with 120 trees of the Don Carlo vari­ety, planted in a tra­di­tional pat­tern to pre­serve the orig­i­nal land­scape shape. Protection of the land and its bio­di­ver­sity under­lies the vision of Cultura Viva, which means liv­ing cul­ture.“We want to make cul­ture,” Deprez Zenezini said. “With the olive leaves from har­vest and prun­ing, we also pro­duce a unique kom­bucha. In doing this, my hus­band Stefano and I are sup­ported by our two chil­dren, who help us with the com­mu­ni­ca­tion of the prod­ucts.”“Our daugh­ter cre­ated the pack­ag­ing of Le Clarisse through which we want to express purity, har­mony, and sim­plic­ity,” she added.Following the prin­ci­ples of regen­er­a­tive agri­cul­ture, the fam­ily com­pany has adopted a cir­cu­lar econ­omy approach, where noth­ing goes to waste and every­thing is reused, includ­ing rain­wa­ter.“Drought is now the main prob­lem,” Deprez Zenezini said. “Considering the ris­ing pro­duc­tion costs, we are aware that we have started at a com­plex time. Yet we are very con­fi­dent in the future and, also build­ing on these suc­cesses, we are look­ing for­ward to the upcom­ing har­vest.”Along with first-time recip­i­ents, long­time NYIOOC win­ners from cen­tral Italy cel­e­brated suc­cess at the world’s largest olive oil qual­ity com­pe­ti­tion.Among these were the pro­duc­ers from Domenica Fiore, also in Umbria, who earned three Gold Awards for their Olio Novello, Novello di Notte and Olio Reserva brands.“Once again, this year, we have man­aged to cre­ate high-pro­file prod­ucts,” Cesare Bianchini told Olive Oil Times. “We are very happy with this result that makes us very proud.”A mas­ter miller and blender, Bianchini fol­lows the whole pro­duc­tion process of the multi-awarded blends.“We col­lect the dif­fer­ent vari­eties – Leccino, Frantoio, Moraiolo, and Canino – sep­a­rately,” he said. “We care­fully com­bine them later to cre­ate bal­anced and com­plex sen­sory pro­files that we could not obtain by ran­domly mix­ing the vari­eties.”The olive trees thrive opti­mally at 400 meters above sea level in rich, sandy soil – mil­lions of years ago, prob­a­bly in the Plio-Pleistocene era, the land that hosts these orchards was a seabed, and it is still pos­si­ble to find ancient shells in the ground.After har­vest­ing, the fruits are crushed in the com­pany mill, w...