Making olive oil in Tuscany: come in October and beginnig of November to the Valtiberina and pick the olives with us!
The olive harvest is a tradition here in the hills of the Valtiberina, in Tuscany. At the end of olive cultivation in 
November, harvesting takes place at Le Ceregne organic farmhouse. When it’s cold, we warm our hands in the gloomy days with the scaldino (= homemade/handmade “hand warmer”).
“Now we pick the olives quickly, with sheets under the olive trees, we make them fall down and then we pick them, so we work fast, but before we used to use the basket or the apron and we had to pick them one by one!” Nonno Armando says.
He is still an expert of “scaldino“: when it gets really cold he prepares it carefully by placing some embers between ash, so that when he takes the scaldino to the countryside to make his hands warmer, the embers last longer.
But there are also sunny days and then we have more fun picking olives, because we can enjoy the last autumn heat that warms us on top of the ladder, collecting from the highest points or while we turn around the olive trees, in a kind of ritualistic dance that we do, to be sure that the new oil is good.
In the past, the olive oil was the only condiment for the coming year and make it good and abundant meant eating well for a whole year. For us today, it is still an important part of Italian cooking, and that’s why we take care of every detail from the harvest to the “molinatura”, because the fruits of our labor can last a whole year on the tables of our restaurant.
Making olive oil in Tuscany: come to the Valtiberina and pick the olives with us!
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As an example of sustainability in tourism, we’re offering experiential tours where the guests learn farming and making pasta and bread, pick olives and grapes, mushrooms and truffle hunting, enjoy tailor-made green tours and craftmanship tours. We only employ locals and try to give a real sense of local lifestyle to tourists. Also through storytelling and working with local memories… so that they return home having had an amazing experience, without feeling like they have had to spend a fortune to do it! What are you waiting for? CONTACT US! Try our experiential tours in Italy… join our Tuscan tribe!