About
Cutrera's house blend, drawn from five Sicilian olive varieties grown in the hills and coastal flats of the south east. Green gold in the glass, medium fruity, with cut grass, artichoke, green almond and red tomato, then a peppery bite. The litre is the size you cook with and still finish a plate from.
The olives grow in hilly and coastal groves of south eastern Sicily, around Chiaramonte Gulfi in the Monti Iblei. Cutrera farms more than fifty hectares there. Five varieties go into the blend: Moresca, Biancolilla, Nocellara, Cerasuola and Tonda Iblea. Picking runs from November, some of it by hand and some by machine.
Extraction is mechanical only, on a modern two phase line with no water added and the paste held below 27 degrees. That cold handling is what keeps the bitterness and the pepper in the bottle.
The Cutrera family has grown olives here for more than a century and six generations, and mills its own fruit. Put it on marinated fish, mushrooms, bean soup and salads, or over grilled red meat that needs a lift.
Producer note
Frantoi Cutrera mills at Chiaramonte Gulfi in south eastern Sicily, six generations and better than a century into the job. It farms more than fifty hectares in the Monti Iblei and runs its own extraction lines.