Organic extra virgin olive oil and honey from the hills of Reggello.
Azienda Agricola Scopeto belongs to the Ermini family. We didn't choose the name: Scopeto is one of the historic farms that for centuries were part of the Fattoria di Mandri estate, just outside Reggello, on the hills overlooking the Valdarno valley.
Our olive trees are centuries old. They grow on terraces at 460 metres, facing south-west and surrounded by woods, trained in the traditional bush-vase and polyconic-vase shapes.
We grow them organically and pick the olives by hand, as it has always been done. Alongside the olive trees, our bees work the same woods and meadows, and their blossoms give us four different honeys.
We produce little, by choice. We would rather make an honest oil and honey that taste of this place.
The terraces of Scopeto grow the traditional varieties of the Florentine hills. Each has a name, a character and a job. Harvested and pressed together, they become our oil.
Its name comes from the dark, almost blackberry colour (mora in Italian) its small round olives take on as they ripen. It is an old variety of Tuscany and Umbria that loves dry, stony hillsides, just like ours.
It suffers in the frost, but gives the boldest oil in return: intensely fruity, bitter and peppery. It is what gives our oil its body and long shelf life.
Frantoio means olive mill: this has always been the olive to take to the press, generous in yield and wonderfully fragrant. In some areas it is called Correggiolo. It left Tuscany for the world and is now grown as far away as California and Australia.
In our oil it brings elegance: notes of grass and artichoke, a light bitterness and a spicy finish.
Born in Tuscany, it copes best with cold and disease. Its name is said to recall the holm oak (leccio), for its thick, vigorous crown. It ripens early: its olives turn black before the others.
It brings softness and sweetness to the oil, and in difficult years it is often the one that saves the harvest.
It is named after its long, drooping branches that hang towards the ground. It is planted among the other varieties because it is an excellent pollinator: on their own, Frantoio and Leccino set little fruit.
Without it there would be fewer olives. In our oil it adds fresh, green notes.
When frost kills the trunk, the olive sprouts again from its stump. Many of Tuscany's ancient olive trees have in fact been reborn several times from the same roots, generation after generation.
In January 1985 an exceptional frost struck millions of olive trees across much of Tuscany. Many were cut back to the base and grew again from the stump, which is why so many old groves now have trees with several trunks.
The terraces of Scopeto were built by hand, stone upon stone, to win soil from the slope. The olive trees still grow on these stone steps and on grassy terraces.
In autumn the olives are picked by hand, laid in crates and taken to the mill without delay. Here, haste is a virtue: the less time passes, the better the oil.
An intensely fruity extra virgin oil, rich in polyphenols and oleic acid, cold-pressed from olives grown organically on the terraces of Reggello and picked by hand.
It is made in small quantities, for people who look for a genuine, high-quality oil. It suits any dish, but is at its best raw: on meat, fish, pulses and salads.
Extra virgin olive oil is good for you thanks to oleic acid and polyphenols, but only if it is clean. Many pesticides used against the olive fly close to harvest pass from the olive into the oil and end up on our plates. Organic farming replaces chemical fertilisers and pesticides with natural substances.
The rules cover every step: growing, milling, where organic olives follow a separate line, and bottling, with standards similar to those for PDO oils. Checks happen in three stages: the certification body inspects the land and tests it in the laboratory and, if all is in order, certifies the field; then it checks the mill and finally the bottling. It takes three years of inspections before the first organic oil can be sold.
Even the label needs special authorisation: it must show the name of the certification body and the words «organic farming». In the end, the label is the oil's certificate of guarantee.
That is why organic oil costs a little more: natural fertilisers and treatments are more expensive and less effective, so each hectare yields less oil, and the inspections have a cost too. For us it is an investment in health and in the land we will leave to those who come after us.
The law does not require it, but Scopeto olives are picked by hand. It is the only way to gather them at just the right ripeness without the bruising of falling or beating, and good oil starts right here.
Unlike wine, olive oil does not improve with age, but stored well it keeps for more than two years. That is why it should be racked at least once a year, before summer, so it does not ferment on the natural sediment that settles at the bottom of the containers. Its main enemy is light: the chlorophyll that makes it green protects the oil in the dark, but in the light it makes it oxidise. The colour turns from green to yellow and then orange, and the oil goes rancid.
For large quantities the best material is stainless steel, which blocks light completely; for bottles, dark glass is better, as it is cheaper and insulates better from heat. So our unfiltered oil settles in stainless-steel drums at a constant temperature, where the natural sediment drops out, and is then bottled in the dark-green opaque moresca bottle, which keeps it well beyond its best-before date.
At home, keep the bottles away from the oven, the hob and sunny windowsills.
All you need is a glass, and an apple to clear your palate between tastings. First, look: a clear oil has settled properly, a cloudy one has not been racked enough, and an orange tint is a sure sign of an old oil. Then smell: it should recall olives, grass, fruit or vegetables, never rancidness, mould or sourness.
Finally, taste: put a teaspoon on your tongue, press your tongue to the roof of your mouth and draw in air a few times so the oil warms up and coats your whole mouth. Besides sweet, sour, salty and bitter you will notice astringency and pepperiness, and your nose joins in too: flavour comes from all of it together. Rancid or sour notes mean a poor oil; fruity, grassy, bitter and peppery are good signs. If the aromas and flavours are clearly distinct, the oil is good; if they are also in balance, it is excellent.
Our bees work the same woods and meadows as our olive trees. Only the blossoms change, and each season brings a honey with its own character.
From the lightest and most delicate to the darkest and most intense: acacia in spring, wildflower from spring into summer, chestnut in high summer, honeydew at the end of the season.
Pale gold, almost clear, with a floral scent. It stays runny for a long time. Ideal in tea and herbal infusions.
Made from dozens of wildflowers, it changes every year. The everyday honey, on bread and in milk.
From the chestnut woods around the olive groves. Intense and slightly bitter. Perfect with aged cheeses.
It comes not from flowers but from the honeydew bees gather on woodland trees. Mineral, with notes of caramel.
Our family photographs, from the newest to the oldest. Tap one to see it full size and share it.
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Between Florence and the Pratomagno mountains, along the Sette Ponti road, the land of Reggello has been planted with olive trees for centuries.
Località Scopeto, Mandri 30/B · 50066 Reggello (FI)
For information about Olio di Scopeto and our honeys, write to us:
VAT no. IT05167270486
