Cereals and grains - Import export

About ten to six thousand years ago many human cultures settled down going from hunting to settled farmers. The introduction of the first cereals emmer and einkorn marked this transition. “Ötzi”, the man from the ice, has been shown to feed on einkorn. Later on in human history, more high-yielding grains as spelt and barley and finally wheat replaced the fine einkorn. However, einkorn remains until today a very digestible and tasty cereal.

Crop rotation in organic farming is a vital practice that maintains soil nutrients, suppresses weeds, and controls pests. To sustain soil health, crops such as legumes, which improves soil fertility, are rotated with cereals, which exploit the soil. Egyptian clover, a leguminous crop, is widely used to fix nitrogen into the soil and nourish it.

The harvest has been characterized by high quality olives and by a low and uneven distribution of the fruits on the canopy. We started hand-picking the olives from the trees early October and the work has been completed about two and a half weeks later. On average the overall production has been below the yield of previous seasons. Nonetheless, we were able to cold press a flavory monovarietal leccino, with a fresh almond accent, and our traditional EVOO blend. It has been a great team effort, with the support of the Marignoni and Rossi families and some other friends that have been working this land in the middle of Maremma, Tuscany, for almost three decades!

KALI offers two different flavors of its Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO): a blend and a monovarietal leccino. The former is a blend of four different varieties: leccino, moraiolo, frantoio, and pendolino. It has a distinct flavor that reminds the aroma of a Mediterranean garden in the Spring. The latter is a typical monovarietal leccino with a slight note recalling fresh almonds followed by a peppery note.

Did you ever wonder why your throat is sometimes tingling or even burning when you taste high quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)? Were you may be wondering what exactly is happening in your mouth? Yet, this reaction is a sign that you are tasting a high-quality product. For years EVOO has been judged exactly on this ability to make you cough. The more you cough, the better the quality. This response is indeed a sign for the purity of the oil. Some experts even grade the EVOO as one-cough, two-cough, even three-cough.

After months of uninterrupted and meticulous work we finally reached the endpoint of our efforts in October 2019: the olive harvest. Harvesting olives requires a careful planning as each single step should aim at ensuring the best possible quality of the olive oil in compliance with the regulations for organic cultures. During the previous months, the biggest challenge was the fight against the olive fruit fly which had threatened to cause huge losses. The weapons available to us as organic growers are very limited and include balanced soil management, careful pruning, tight monitoring, and the use of kaolin clay. At the time of harvesting we detected a fly infestation in about 5% of the olives, which did not affect the oil quality. The adverse weather conditions with ongoing rain showers forced us to postpone the start of the harvest of ten days. Finally, a beautiful sunny day on October 8, 2019 allowed us to begin the meticulous work of harvesting the ripe fruits. More