I have launched a fundraising campaign through Kickstarter to save my grandparent’s olive grove in Abruzzo, Italy, with century old olive trees.
I only rediscovered the olive grove last summer when going through old photographs and after days examining documents to remember where it was located, photographs and asking neighbours, i eventually found the olive grove. I have so many memories of me helping my grandparents collecting olives. The olive grove, now overgrown, and the olive trees have not been pruned for decades.
I become very passionate about olive oil as you probably know if you follow me, in the last few years I've completed several courses, I believes that not only a good olive oil can elevate a dish, whether a bruschetta or a fillet steak, but because of its health benefits. Extra virgin olive oil is a superfood, possibly the most underappreciated, a superfood that can help us living a healthier life. After rediscovering the olive grove, together with a local agronomist, his name is Andrea, we collected some olives and pressed them in a local mill just down the road to understand their potential and with great surprise, they produced an outstanding olive oil.
The olive grove is on a hill, between the Apennines and the Adriatic sea, in a very vocated area, surrounded by plenty of abandoned land. If the land is cleared, the century old olive trees can be saved and allowed to produce olives again, a few more years and it will be too late to save them. We want to follow the organic cultivation method, the olive grove has not been treated for decades so the soil is as pure as it can be, and maybe this is the reason the olive trees are still producing olives despite the wild vegetation that has taken over and surrounded them.
The aim of the
campaign is to raise enough money to clean the grove, prune the trees and produce an outstanding extra virgin olive oil and has eight reward levels all the way up to an all inclusive week in Abruzzo packed with visits to local wineries and food artisans.
Thanks for all your help