Agresti 1902

Region: Lazio

Company name: Agresti 1902 Società Agricola s.s.

Location: Pontine hills – Sonnino (Latina)

Historical context and birth of the company

“The olive trees have been part of my family culture since the first half of the 1800s. Documentary sources and memory cannot go further but everything suggests that the bond has more remote roots. From a subsistence olive growing: oil and olives as means of exchange and of sustenance, the wood of pruning for cooking and heating, after more than two centuries we have landed on sustainable, nutraceutical and heroic olive growing.

Aspects that until twenty years ago no one would have compared oil and olives, today they are, at least the first two (sustainable and nutraceutical), an obligatory path to enhance olive production.
The three adjectives – sustainable, nutraceutical and heroic – contain our philosophy, our way of understanding olive growing, without compromise.

Agresti 1902 is a tribute to Francesco Paolo, my grandfather, from whom I inherited the name and the strong bond with the land and the olive tree “.

Francesco Paolo Agresti

The olive groves are between 400 and 550 meters above sea level, in the most inaccessible areas of the PDO Colline Pontine in the municipalities of di Itri and Sonnino, on steep soils of calcareous origin, with a southern, southwestern exposure, towards the Mediterranean.
The 30% slope requires manual management of each processing cycle, from pruning to harvesting.
Altitude and exposure favor greater irradiation and a wider difference between minimum and maximum temperatures, conditions that allow the nutraceutical and sensorial properties to be best exploited, giving life to an extra virgin naturally richer in polyphenols and antioxidants, with a sensory profile in able to enhance the characteristics of the cultivar and with higher levels of oleic acid.
The CO2 sequestered by centuries-old olive trees is higher than that generated during all stages of production: from management in the field, to the oil mill up to sale.
The olive groves are managed with conservative agronomic techniques that generate a positive environmental impact (dry, rain irrigation only; grassing; manual harvesting and pruning; two-phase pressing with less water and energy consumption), not only because the company considers it right but also because it is the only possible way to lead terraced olive groves at high altitude.
Furthermore, in the olive groves, mini integral reserves have been created in which the growth of Mediterranean scrub is supported in order to support the fauna and floral biodiversity.
In the last 40 years in Italy 1.5 million hectares have been abandoned, 70% in hilly areas, the highest abandonment rates are recorded when the slopes of the land exceed 20%.
In the last 50 years, 80% of the olive groves in the sub-Mediterranean belt of Central Italy have been abandoned. In the province of Latina, between the 1980s and 2010, the areas planted with olive groves decreased by 2,000 hectares.
Itrana Alta Quota is the name of the project with which Agresti 21902 intends to counter the risk of abandonment of the hilly areas of the Colline Pontine DOP area, and at the same time enhance the nutraceutical properties of extra virgin olive oil produced in the high hills on terraced land , where the steep slopes require manual management of all cultivation practices.
When abandonment trumps tenacity, it is not only the olive grower who is losing out, on the contrary, often stops incurring unproductive costs. Loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, landscape and hydrogeological damage are some of the effects that abandonment causes on the ecosystem.
Damages that become even more significant if terraced lands bordered by dry stone walls are left to their fate, which, without maintenance, end up losing their containment power.
Yet sloping hilly lands have on average a better agronomic state of health than those in the plains. So why give up? Why not try to reverse course? Simple will is not enough, concrete gestures are needed.
That’s why you should buy high hill extra virgin olive oil grown on terraced land.

For all the terminologies used in olive growing go to our GLOSSARY

591 Altitudo

• Three leaves prawn Red 2022
• Gold Award 2022 NYIOOC, New York International Olive Oil Competition
• Platinum Award 2022 Berlin Gooa
• Gold Medal 2022 Olive Japan
• Gold Prize Monovarietal 2022 JOOP Japan Olive Oil Prize
• Gold Award 2022 DUBAIOOC, Dubai International Olive Oil Competition
• Inclusion in the NYIOOC World’s Best Olive Oil