La Spinetta Tuscan Olive Oil 2011 Pressing 500ml
Olive Oil
La Spinetta is renowned for its Barbera, Barbaresco, Sangiovese and Moscato in the United States. But its olive oils – some of the finest known to Italians – have been available only in Europe. La Spinetta applies the same precision and perfectionism to olive oil, and now Lot18 members can finally sample these precious oils.
Giorgio Rivetti and his Piedmontese family started La Spinetta in 1977. Their read more...
La Spinetta is renowned for its Barbera, Barbaresco, Sangiovese and Moscato in the United States. But its olive oils – some of the finest known to Italians – have been available only in Europe. La Spinetta applies the same precision and perfectionism to olive oil, and now Lot18 members can finally sample these precious oils.Read more...
La Spinetta is renowned for its Barbera, Barbaresco, Sangiovese and Moscato in the United States. But its olive oils – some of the finest known to Italians – haveRead more...
La Spinetta is renowned for its Barbera, Barbaresco, Sangiovese and Moscato in the United States. But its olive oils – some of the finest known to Italians – have been available only in Europe. La Spinetta applies the same precision and perfectionism to olive oil, and now Lot18 members can finally sample these precious oils.
Giorgio Rivetti and his Piedmontese family started La Spinetta in 1977. Their goal was simple: to make the best Moscato d'Asti – a sweet, sparkling dessert wine. Why does this matter? It was the Rivetti family's passion for wine production, and their agrarian fanaticism, that led them to produce not only outstanding Barolos and Barbarescos but also olive oil.
Ten years ago, Rivetti purchased a 160-acre property several regions south of his acclaimed winery, in Tuscany. South of Pisa, La Spinetta di Casanova is not far from the village of Casanova. The term "village" is a bit of an overstatement – only eight families live there. It just so happened that within this property was a 50-acre olive orchard of century-old olive trees of the Razzo, Leccino and Muraiolo varieties.
La Spinetta olive oil is produced when olives from these ancient trees are harvested young, mixed and cold-pressed. Rivetti has obsessed over quality since the first production in 2002. He harvests olives earlier for a fruiter, brighter oil, and using state-of-the-art equipment, he cold-presses the olives immediately after harvest to capture the lovely green, floral quality in a young olive oil.
Perfection doesn't stop with what's in the bottle. The oil is presented in a beautiful white box stamped with the same rhinoceros Albrecht Dürer print from the wine bottles. Remove the cap of the beautiful green bottle, and a spout pops out: an easy, elegant pouring mechanism.
La Spinetta represents the happy result of hard work and a driving passion for food and wine. Taste this robust and fruity olive oil, and you'll understand the difference. This is a markedly more powerful oil than any other on the market.
Tasting Note
This beautiful, golden-hued oil was made from the 2011 olive harvest. With grassy, vegetal aromas on the nose, this luscious oil also has a notable spiciness on the finish. I like to add a drizzle across fresh mozzarella with a pinch of sea salt as a snack, or even caramelize onions with it for more richness and complexity than one would expect in such a simple dish.
What You Should Know
Storage: Store away from heat and light.
Perishability: Use within 12 months.
Katy Andersen studied cheese in Italy as a Fulbright Scholar before joining Lot18 as the Gourmet Food Specialist. Katy grew up on an organic farm, surrounded by a garden, an heirloom apple orchard and heritage livestock. While at Princeton University, she founded the Greening Princeton Farmers Market and the Princeton Slow Food chapter. Most recently, Katy was co-president of the Wine & Cuisine Society at the Harvard Business School. She was also a member of the winning finalist team of the Bordeaux blind-tasting competition at Lafite in 2011.
More About This Olive Oil
We make our olive oil with the same philosophy as we make our wine. The quality of the fruit matters above all. The exceptional quality of our olive oil depends on the care we take of our trees and the olives, the old age of the trees and the good conditions of ground, climate and exposure.
Respecting nature and our environment, we do not use any chemical products, pesticides or herbicides to grow our olives. We want to make a great, healthy olive oil, using traditional methods and always placing quality over quantity. The taste and the color of the oil as well as the quantity of olives change from year to year. Many different factors influence the olive oil production, most of which are not controllable by humans. Climate, seasons and temperature are beyond our control, and we appreciate the varying character they give to our oil.
The moment of harvest is essential to the quality of the oil. The later one picks the olives, the riper the olives will be. With riper olives one can produce more olive oil, while gradually losing quality of the fruit. This is why we pick our olives as early as possible.
—From the La Spinetta Website
Availability
This product ships to the following states:
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming
