We Are Back!
As our friends and family of supporters are well aware, we took a year off from our selling. Harvest of 2023 was not great in our area and then our mill, Frantoio Rossi was out of commission after Pierantonio, the town where it’s located, was the epicenter of a serious earthquake in the spring of ‘23. As of this writing the elementary school is still closed, the fruit seller and baker are gone, and hundreds of families dislocated. Our tiny town is hanging on by its sheer determination! We were so fortunate to have sustained only minor damages and are thrilled to be gearing up for this “raccolta” of 2024. take a peek at our recent newsletter for an update.
The olives are swelling after a burst of early fall rains. Frantoio Rossi, our olive mill where we do our pressing, is up and running after last year’s earthquake ground everything to a halt - no pun intended. Our good friends down the hill at the spectacular Vineria del Carmine have agreed to let us use their wine labeling machine to relieve Antonio of the time-consuming job of placing labels on our bottles by hand. I’ve made arrangements to ship from Italy to you directly so no more front porch pickups and brown bag drop offs for you Austinites (more on that later). And most exciting, we have a brand new partnership with Civitella Ranieri, an arts foundation, just a few miles from us at Castiglione Ugolino, who will be receiving our donations from the profits we make from your purchases of our special oil!
I will say, it is thanks to all of you who kept writing and calling saying: “Jen, is the oil ready?”, “I’m dying here, my oil bottles are empty!” These entreaties encouraged me to do some rethinking and revamping of our work. I have to admit I was actually about to throw in the towel.
As many of you understand, this is a business of love, not of great margins and profits. Hand harvesting is extremely labor intensive. We are subject to the whims of mother nature and sadly the impacts of changes to the climate are shifting everything unpredictably. Plus I have been searching for sustained relationships with the causes locally which give that extra motivation and meaning that really spurs me on.
But I heard y’all!
View of the grape vines at Vineria del Carmine
Ugolino seen through Antonio’s garden this summer
Elisabetta and I catching up in front of the frantoio.
The changes I described will make the job a little more streamlined and more fun. I’m getting back up into the olive trees too where I always find the most inspiration.
Lee and I are heading over to Italy in October right after WE VOTE EARLY (nudge, nudge, nudge) to pick the olives and we will be hosting some guests from Civitella Ranieri to help us. A group will be spending a day with us to learn about and help with the harvest - and of course, enjoy a nice lunch under the pergola for a break!
We are hosting the group for this “raccolta” as a test run for an olive harvest and women’s creativity retreat we plan to offer next fall with our friends at NextTribe who we’ve partnered with these last two summers. If you are interested in learning more, there’s an info session on October 8th to talk about the upcoming women’s retreat scheduled for May 10-18, 2025. There are also two lovely articles posted on the NextTribe magazine written by Jeannie Ralston and Carol Flake Chapman detailing their experiences during our time together in Umbria at our Castiglione Ugolino retreats.
Giving back to the community has really been a driver for us so we are so pleased to be engaging with Civitella Ranieri. Their fellowship program invites, through a jury selection, extraordinary artists, writers, composers from all over the world to spend 6 weeks in residence. We have seen some amazing performances by some of the fellows when the Castello opens its doors for fellows to share their work. This past summer for example, Ocean Vuong gave a moving reading in the shadow of the castle ramparts and Amanda Gorman recently began her residency. Given all the things happening in our world right now, supporting the arts and bringing people of diverse backgrounds together feels like the perfect thing to support.
A fellow at work at Civitella Ranieri - photo courtesy of Civitella Ranieri