"A splendid and exciting adventure"
When we ask Michele Clemente, President of Olearia Clemente, to tell us the entrepreneurial story of one of Italy's largest oil companies, he answers exactly that: a splendid and exciting adventure.
It can only be otherwise for a company with a hundred years of activity that ploughs through the years and was founded in Manfredonia, in the heart of the Gargano, amidst olive trees with imposing foliage and intertwined trunks, a perfect tangle that is only Mother Nature's.
We arrive at the farm through vast expanses of olive groves where the green of the leaves and fruit dominates the existing land. The dense foliage of the olive trees is barely moved by a light breeze that smells of the vegetation and saltiness of the nearby Adriatic Sea, which reaches our sense of smell, conciliating our senses.
In this unspoilt landscape, barely touched by anthropisation, lies Olearia Clemente. The history of Olearia Clemente is that of a family that has been dedicated to the agricultural and olive-growing tradition for five generations.
It was inaugurated in 1895 by Berardino Clemente, the great-grandfather of the current owners, siblings Michele, Antonello, Carla and Ilenia, with the precise aim of offering the market an excellent product that would enhance the cultivars of this area.
This objective was pursued through the direct management of the entire production process, starting with the fruit, harvested perfectly healthy, often by hand, and processed using special technologies that allow a product unique in taste and aroma to be obtained. Olearia Clemente should be credited with the ability to give extra virgin olive oil the value it deserves, disrupting the belief that it is just a condiment but making it, instead, a cornerstone food of the Mediterranean diet.
The experience gained over the years is the key to producing pure and natural extra virgin olive oil. In Olearia Clemente's sublime olive pressing we have Apulian cultivars, such as Coratina, Ogliarola Garganica and Peranzana, monocultivars that have their own specificity with explosive organoleptic qualities that taste of herbaceousness, sweetness, fruit and nature.
From respect for the latter comes the line of organic oils including 'U Polp', extra virgin DOP Dauno del Gargano with a unique flavour and packaging that in its colours and designs winks at the veracity of Apulia.
A precise bouquet of scents and flavours is what 'Zagare' oil gives, a 100% Italian cold-pressed oil named after the flowers surrounding the Gargano citrus groves.
The Zagare line is a historic line, now launched in a modern version that symbolises the fifth generation of Olearia Clemente. In this oil, whose fruits are kissed by the sun and blessed by the air, the company's centuries-old tradition is combined with the impetus towards the future represented by the very young Eliana, Leonardo, Berardino and Rosistella, who are eager to take Olearia Clemente to as yet unexplored frontiers.
