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Especially Puglia

From Puglia to your table

Adopt a Beehive with Especially Puglia

 

We’ve loved bringing you the finest extra virgin olive oil and specialty cheese from Puglia.  Now we are so excited to introduce our newest program, Adopt a Beehive.

Adopt a Beehive lets our customers (that’s you!) select and “adopt” a beehive from a specific family honeybee farm in Puglia.  By adopting a beehive, you are making an upfront contribution that supports independent farmers and producers in ensuring a high quality product.

Farmed using organic and sustainable methods according to proud artisanal tradition, the honey from our partner farms is expressive and full of terroir. It’s incredibly fresh and uniquely flavorful. We ship your honey straight from the family farm producer to your home. By adopting a beehive, you receive two 500-gram jars of honey in seasonal flavors—Millefiori Mountain, Acacia, Orange, or Coriander—sourced directly from a Pugliese farm. The jars of honey will arrive in a wooden crate with a classic honey dipper, a bee tea towel, and a Certificate of Adoption that includes the name of the farm, number of the hive, and the date of harvest.

Looking to check those holiday gifts off your list? Adopt a Beehive is the perfect present for any food lover

Our honey producers include Garofalo Farm and Anzivino Farm. The former is run by Anna Lina Garofalo and her husband, two dedicated beekeepers who founded their company almost 40 years ago. Now they tend around 200 hives in the “Apicoltura Ceglia,” near the Regional Park of the Bosco Incoronata. Anzivino Farm is the family farm of Fabio Anzivino, who took over 40 beehives from his father. While the company is based in Orsara di Puglia, the beehives are continuously moved to follow the flowering periods in the surrounding area, to ensure the finest honey.

Three reasons we hope you’ll love our Adopt a Beehive program:

  1. It’s good for the earth. The population of bees has been in a rapid decline across the globe. Bees help nurture and support the environment, and nearly one-third of the food we eat relies on bees for pollination. beekeeping supports the bee population by providing bees with a steady source of food.
  2. Support small farmers. Your contribution will ensure family farms in Puglia continue to thrive.
  3. You’ve never tried honey so delicious. This silky sweet honey is fragrant, smooth, and nearly impossible not to love. Whether you’re stirring it into your tea, drizzling it over vanilla ice cream, or using it to glaze veggies, you’ll taste the difference.

Quick and Easy Pugliese Appetizers for your Thanksgiving Dinner

This is the season for hosting!  With so many holidays coming up, it’s no doubt you’re probably going to be hosting at least one dinner party.  And we know it can be stressful because there are so many things to worry about.  Will the turkey roast properly?  Will there be good dinner conversation?  Will your picky aunt Rita like the wine you chose?  AGH!

There are already so many things to juggle, the last thing you need to worry about are the appetizers.  So we’re here to help!  No need to go over the top with complicated canopés or tasteless frozen ready-mades.  We have 3 quick and easy Pugliese appetizer recipes that will keep your guests satisfied and you free to have fun!

Fried Olives

Serves 8

This is the only recipe on our list that requires cooking, but it’s super fast and breezy.  Frying the olives gives them a little more pizzazz than the fresh-out-the-jar version.

Ingredients

2 cups small, sweet black olives with pit

1/4 cup olive oil

2 cloves garlic

1 small red chili pepper, chopped (optional)

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Heat olive oil over a medium skillet on medium heat.  Add the garlic cloves and chili peppers and cook for 1 minute.  Turn the heat up to medium-high and add the olives.  Cook for another 5 minutes, or until the olives are blistered and some have popped.  Serve warm.

 

Burrata with Truffle

Serves 8

The easiest of all three recipes, this one just requires few ingredients and a quick assembly.  And yet your guests will be very impressed by the elevated flavors of this creamy favorite.

Ingredients:

1 lb Fresh Burrata

1/2 oz shaved black truffle

olive oil 

Sliced Italian bread for serving

Directions

Chop the burrata.  It will be runny, so keep it in a bowl to retain the soft interior of the cheese.  Mix in the shaved truffle and top the burrata with olive oil.  Serve cold with bread.

 

Bruschetta with Caciocavallo, Capocollo, Fig and Honey

Serves 8

Last but not least, this tasty stack brings a complex balance of flavors in a neat little package.  Savory capicola and sweet honey get a texture boost from velvety caciocavallo and seedy figs.

Ingredients

16 slices Italian bread, 1/4 inch thick

olive oil

1/4 lb capocollo

8 oz caciocavallo cheese

16 figs

1/2 cup honey

Directions

Brush each slice of bread with olive oil and toast until golden brown.  Top each slice with capicola, caciocavallo cheese, and one sliced fig in that order.  To finish, drizzle bruschetta with honey.

Harvest Season is Here!

Five reasons we’re excited about the 2018 harvest

It’s the most wonderful season: harvest season! We’re in Puglia right now, helping our farmers press their ripe olives into fresh, fragrant extra-virgin olive oil. We’re so excited for you to taste the incredible oil. Throughout Italy, it’s been a difficult harvest. But our farmers take impeccable care of their groves and focus on quality over quantity, so you can count on impressive olive oil this year.

Pre-order your fresh-pressed extra-virgin olive oil now, and you’ll receive your package by the middle of December. They are perfect for holiday cooking and gifting! Here are five reasons we wait all year for the olive harvest:

Freshness Matters

The harvest happens only once a year in autumn—right about now. When it comes to age, olive oil is more like juice than wine: fresh is best…by far. Time is an enemy of olive oil, causing it to slowly but surely oxidize and degrade. Our olives are pressed within eight hours of being handpicked to ensure maximum freshness. As you’re reading this, olives are being harvested, freshly pressed, and bottled in our family farms in Puglia.

Supporting Family Farms

Our oil is produced organically on small, family-owned farms—many of whom have been tending olive groves for countless generations. We work directly with these farms (we’re here now!). By participating in our international CSA programs and enjoying our products, you’re directly supporting family-run farms and independent artisans. When your oil arrives, you’ll know the people behind the product. You’ll be able to taste the terroir, sense of place, tradition, and care that goes into every bottle.

Transparency & Quality

Producing real-deal extra virgin olive oil and maintaining its quality through transport and the supply chain is incredibly difficult. Most ‘extra virgin’ oils on grocery store shelves do not deserve that status. They are past their prime, or they were never extra virgin to begin with.

We’re proud to offer olive oil whose quality and integrity you can trust. By working hand-in-hand with master farmers and craftsmen and remaining true to the ethos of small-batch, artisanal production, we offer some of the purest extra virgin olive oils in Southern Italy. You’ll receive an adoption certificate with the number of your tree and information about the groves and farm, so you know precisely where your oil comes from. By emphasizing sustainable practices, small-batch production and short, transparent supply chains, we guarantee the most authentic taste of Puglia.

Healthy & Delicious

Quality olive oil boasts myriad health benefits, like protecting against cardiovascular disease and high cholesterol. It’s a mainstay of Mediterranean diet, considered the healthiest diet in the world. Extra-virgin olive oil is rich in polyphenol compounds—a kind of antioxidant. There are over 30 compounds that we know of in olive oil, which is more than in blueberries. It also helps that the freshest, best olive oil tends to be the healthiest and the most delicious. A healthy life isn’t all about what you eat, it’s also about howyou eat. This season, slow down and take some time to enjoy a meal with people you love.

 

The Perfect Holiday Gift

Check your food-loving friends and family off your list. These are olive oils you want to have in your life, on your table and in your kitchen. Three liters of single-harvest extra virgin olive oil from plus a ceramic bottle in which to decant your oil, made by Pugliese artisans and packed in a hand-crafted wooden crate make a lovely present. No wrapping necessary. 

Adopt an olive tree and share the love!

 

How to Taste Extra Virgin Olive Oil 

Objective tasting assessments have as much bearing on the Italian olive-oil industry as they do on the Italian wine industry. Similar to the Court of Master Sommeliers, which improves the standards of wine service in restaurants and hotels, Italy's Organizzazione Nazionale Assaggiatori Olio di Oliva, or the National Organization of Olive Oil Tasters (ONAOO), uses unbiased sommeliers and a high degree of scientific rigor to improve the standards of olive-oil quality for producers, distributors and consumers alike.

But just like you don't have to be a sommelier to taste wine, you also don't need to be one to taste olive oils either!  With this guide, you will learn how to assess olive oil quality like a pro.

ONAOO and Italian Olive Oils

Founded in 1983, ONAOO has trained over 300,000 students in the official method of olive-oil sensory evaluation, making the sommelier a vital player in quality assurance. Do you need to travel to ONAOO in Imperia to learn how to evaluate and savor premium extra-virgin olive oils? Of course not. But knowing the basics of olive-oil evaluation, which you can learn at home, is a fundamental skill of every connoisseur, particularly in the U.S., where deceptive labeling and lack of a centralized quality-assurance authority can make informed purchasing particularly challenging.

A host of factors distinguish Italian olive oils from other internationally produced olive oils. Differences in terroir, topography, and climate of the olive's growing region, along with the sheer number of olive varieties to choose from, results in a wide variety of flavor profiles from one olive oil to the next.  One can use an aroma wheel to describe an olive oil's unique characteristics, not unlike that used to describe the profile of a wine.

Olive variety plays as important a role in the taste and aroma of an olive oil as its production method. For example, by working directly with farmers in Northern Puglia, we have unfettered access to premium olive varieties, such as Peranzana, Santa Caterina and Coratina, which we use to craft small-batch, artisanal extra-virgin oils of the highest order.

Get Tasting!

Always taste our small-batch oils before using them in a recipe or dish. A quality assessment will not only help you distinguish a high-quality oil from a subpar or rancid oil, but will also give you an idea of what kind of dishes to use it in.

While the olive-oil tasting technique largely mirrors that of wine tasting, you'll find olive oil's viscosity influences how you perceive flavor sensations—they tend to linger longer on the palate and in the finish. When tasting more than one variety of oil, cleanse your palate with water and a neutral food, such as unsalted water crackers or bread. Enjoy your olive oil as soon as possible after opening for the best taste and aroma.

See our varieties

At Especially Puglia, we offer extra virgin olive oils from seven independent family-run farms in Puglia. Take a look at our farms and olive oil varieties here.  Each olive oil is listed with information on the farm and the best way to use it in your recipes at home.

 

Albicocca di Galatone – The Apricot of Galatone

Photo: IG @sandroboccia

Apricot season is in full swing this time of year in Puglia, so we thought we’d share a little bit about them!  And apricots from this region aren’t your everyday variety, the apricot of Galatone is something special.

Apricots most likely hail from North-Eastern China near the Russian border, but Alexander the Great found them in Armenia where they are still considered a traditional fruit. Greek physician, pharmacologist, and botanist, Pedanius Dioscorides, called the fruit “armeniakòn milon,” or apple from Armenia. The name ‘apricot’ derives from the Arab “al-barquq” meaning plum. Today, apricots are produced widely across the Mediterranean, Eurasia, the United States, and Australia.

The story of the Apricot of Galatone is lost in the legends of the Knights Templar who brought it to Salento on their way back from the East. This variety (known as “arnacocchia” in the local dialect) is smaller than the common variety and is characterized by dark spots near the stalk which, according to local legend, were painted by St. Luke. The Apricot of Galatone is the only native apricot variety from Puglia. It nearly disappeared due to agricultural industrialization, but it’s now protected by a Slow Food Presidium.

The Apricot of Galatone trees, like many ancient varieties, can bear fruit longer than more common varieties.  Some can even keep bearing fruit for over 50 years! According to local farmers, this is thanks to the tradition of grafting plum and bitter almond onto the trunks of the apricot trees.  In the countryside of Galatone, there’s even tale of an 80-year-old tree that still becomes golden with apricots every summer.

The Apricot of Galatone is known for being sweet and soft. You can eat the fruit on its own, or enjoy its jam on bread or in cakes.

By: Antonio Caso

Orecchiette alla Crudaiola

Cookout season is here, and that means plenty of outdoor gatherings with friends and family!  Grilling is a must, but we can’t forget about all the tasty sides.  Pasta salad is a summer staple that no cookout spread would be complete without.  But forget about making the same old box mix we’ve come to accept.  You and your friends and family deserve better!  And we get it, the box mix is easy and fast.  But what if we told you there’s a better way that’s still easy, still fast, but SO much tastier?  Orecchiette alla Crudaiola is just that!  Mix in a few fresh ingredients to your orecchiette, refrigerate, and you have a simple Apulian classic that everyone will love.  Bellow, you’ll find a recipe and a link to a video that will show you how to put it all together.  Whether you’re having a picnic, barbecue, or beach outing, you’ll always want this pasta salad on the menu!

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb al dente orecchiette pasta, still warm
  • 1 lb fresh cherry tomatoes, chopped
  • 1 handful  basil, chopped
  • 16 oz grated ricotta salata or fresh mozzarella
  • 1 clove garlic, cut into a few pieces
  • 4-6 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil 

Directions:

  1. Let the garlic set in the olive oil for a few minutes.
  2. Mix together all ingredients except for pasta.
  3. Stir in warm pasta.
  4. Garnish with more cheese, olive oil, and basil to taste.
  5. Eat right away, or chill for an hour before eating.

Watch how it’s made here!

Wines of Puglia

Happy National Wine Day!

It’s National Wine Day and we’re here to guide you through Italy’s 2nd largest wine producing region, Puglia of course!  The regions richly fertile soils and beautiful climate make it a no-brainer as an option for growing grapes. Puglia has a relatively hot and dry climate that’s tempered by cool breezes from the surrounding water, resulting in expressive and delicious wines. The incredibly diverse geography of the region produces wines that are endlessly varied in terroir. Puglia currently has 29 DOC and 4 DOCG wine regions, mostly concentrated in the Salento region at the very heel of Italy’s boot.

Over the past few years, Puglia has gone through some major changes in the quality of their wines due to caring producers and new regulations.  Once quantity focused, the region now has winemakers who want to show the world how amazing Apulian wines can be. If you love Italian wines, this is definitely the region to keep your eyes on.  So what wines can you expect and how do you pair them with food? Look no further than this list for a foundation in major Apulian vino! This list isn’t exhaustive as there are so many grape varieties found in the region.  But these are the major grapes you will come across when you first dive into the beautiful world of Pugliese glou-glou!

 

RED WINE

Red wines are the bread and butter of Puglia, making up most of the region’s wine.  If you like fruit forward, full red wines then this is the region for you!  And rosé fans? Many of these grapes make some of the best rosés in Italy as well!

Negroamaro

The name Negroamaro means “black bitter” in Italian.  The grapes are in fact quite dark in color, and wines made from Negroamaro will typically have a distinct bitter profile.  The grape is well suited to Puglia’s climate with its thick skins and drought resistant nature. Many Apulian rosés are typically made from Negroamaro.

Wine Profile:  Ruby-Violet in color.  Aromas of red cherry, tobacco, and licorice that transition into black pepper, prune, and herbaceous notes with age.  Flavors typically of ripe blackberry and tobacco. Full bodied with soft tannin. This wine is best between 3-7 years old but can be had with up to 10 years of age.  It can be drunk at room temperature, but a slight chill is also pleasantly refreshing.

Food Pairing: lamb, grilled tuna, red sauces, spicy antipasti

 

Primitivo

Primitivo is the same grape as California Zinfandel.  The name means “early ripening” in old Italian, a name true to its typically early harvest in August.  The grape is less robust than Negramaro, being sensitive to drought, high temperatures, and frost. Primitivo has a naturally high sugar content and its wine was traditionally praised for its high alcohol content (it can reach upward to 18% ABV!).  The intense aromatics have garnered Primitivo popularity in modern times.

Wine Profile:  Aromas of sour and black cherry as well as raspberry.  Taste is jammy black fruit with low acidity and moderate tannin as long as it sees a little barrel time.

Food Pairing:  grilled meat and poultry, sausage, red sauce, strong cheeses

 

Nero di Troia

This black skinned grape is perfectly at home in the northern part of Puglia, especially Foggia and northern Bari.  This late-ripening variety has two growing styles: large berry, tight cluster which is suitable for high yields, and small berry, loose cluster which is suited for high quality.  The relatively high astringency of the grape makes it common in red blends.

Wine Profile: Aromas of cherry, violets, and tobacco.  Taste is dry with medium acidity and variable, but typically high tannins.

Food Pairing: fava beans and chicory, rabbit ragu, grilled chicken

 

WHITE WINE

Though Puglia is most known for red wines that make up the majority of production in the area, one cannot ignore the beautiful white wines coming from the region as well.  The hot and dry climate of Puglia produces crisp dry white wines made for easy drinking blends.

Verdeca

Verdeca is a white grape grown almost exclusively in Puglia but is slowly falling out of favor in the wine world.  It is a very neutral flavored grape and historically was most commonly used in vermouth production. Now it is typically found in blends. But don’t count Verdeca out! It’s very easy drinking and refreshing with notes of citrus, pineapple, and bergamot.

Wine Profile:  Color is straw yellow with a touch of green.  It has a clean minerality that’s almost flinty, with herbal and citrus notes.  Due to acidity, drink young.

Food Pairing: clams, calamari, meat pastries, light cheeses

 

Bombino Bianco

Bombino Bianco is an easy growing, resistant grape varietal with high yields.  Though typically blended with red grapes or used in sparkling wines, Bombino Bianco can be found in still wines on its own.  Unlike many wine varieties, it is also used to make raisins.

Wine Profile: Color is lemon yellow with hints of pale green.  This is a very neutral and subtle grape that can sometimes express soft citrus fruit and floral notes with touches of minerality.

Food Pairing: Marinated eel, shrimp, sweet potato fritters, roasted flounder

 

Greco Bianco

This grape reportedly has Greek origins and has an incredibly long history of over 2500 years.  It is genetically similar to the variety Asprinio. The late maturing Greco Bianco is almost always used in a blend with other Apulian varieties, though a passito dessert wine called Greco di Bianco can also be made in Calabria.

Wine Profile: These wines are fresh and grapey with racing acidity.  They have peachy, grassy aromas and a deep color. Though best young, they will develop more nutty aromas after a few years in the bottle.

Food Pairing: seafood pasta, pulled pork barbecue, caramel, walnuts

Easily Make Pasta At Home With A Chitarra

pasta, troccoli

 

Have you ever wondered how to make beautifully long and thin pasta shapes at home?  Cooks in Puglia use a kitchen tool called ‘chitarra’ or “guitar” in Italian. The tool is named such for the long wires that stretch across it in even increments.  These wires will cut pasta dough into perfect strands as the dough is pushed through them. The wires on either side of the chitarra are spaced differently to make different pasta widths.  One side will make a fettuccini shape, and the other side a troccoli shape.

If you haven’t heard of troccoli, listen up!  Troccoli are a traditional Pugliese pasta shape, especially popular in the Foggia province.  They look similar to spaghetti, but are thicker with a square cross section. This makes them a bit more rustic and chewy than spaghetti, perfect for so many sauces. Traditional Pugliese recipes combine the troccoli with meat sauce, walnut sauce, or a cherry tomato and ricotta dura sauce (you can find our recipe for that HERE)

Use the following recipe to make troccoli at home!

 pasta dough

PASTA DOUGH RECIPE

Serves 4

Ingredients:

  • 400g semolina flour
  • 4 eggs
  • A pinch of salt
  • Water as needed

Method:

  1. Sprinkle flour over a large wooden cutting board or other smooth, clean surface.
  2. Place the semolina flour on the flat surface and create a cavity in the center. Add the eggs to the center of the cavity.
  3. Start to work the flour into the eggs and continue to massage the pasta until you have a dough. You will need to work the pasta for about 5 minutes.  Place the pasta ball under a piece of cloth so it doesn’t dry out.

    chitarra, pasta, troccoli, pasta cutter

  4. Divide the dough into 4-5 small pieces.  While working with each piece, set the others aside underneath a kitchen cloth. Flatten the pasta with a rolling pin until it measures 5mm thick.
  5. Place each rectangle of dough on the chitarra and press it through with a rolling pin so that the wire strings cut the dough which falls through as so called “troccoli” pasta.  Place the strands on a tray and add a little flour to keep them dry and separated. Cover and continue this process with the remaining dough.

    chitarra, pasta cutter, pasta, traccoli

 

Purchase your chitarra pasta cutter from our online shop! 

Italy’s version of Raclette – Caciocavallo Impiccato

Melted deliciousness from Puglia…

Most people associate Raclette with the Swiss alps, where melted wheels of cheese are scraped off onto boiled potatoes with a side of gherkins, pickled onions, and dried meat. While this is one of the most popular dishes in the alps that has spread to other parts of the world, few have heard of the Italian version, Caciocavallo Impiccato. It simply means ‘hanging’ Caciocavallo, named such because you set it up with a sort of curved arm or wire over your barbeque. Once the cheese is partly melted, you scrape it off onto a piece of bread and then you can top it with some Italian honey or just enjoy it as it is.

Over the horseback cheese

The shape of the Caciocavallo cheese makes it perfect for hanging, with its small ‘head’ and bigger body. This also explains the name, Caciocavallo literally translates to the “Horse Cheese” or even “over the horseback cheese.” This shape made it easy to transport the cheeses to markets by tying them in pairs and hanging them over the horse’s back, as well as hanging them to age.

The Caciocavallo Podolico

The variety we prefer at Especially Puglia is the more exclusive Caciocavallo Podolico – made from a specific breed of cattle that are pasture raised and live their lives roaming free in the beautiful landscapes of Puglia. The Podolica cows travel for several kilometers a day in search of wild herbs. For this reason, they do not accumulate fat and they produce little milk – but the milk they do produce gives a unique flavor and intensity to one of the world’s most loved gourmet cheeses, the Caciocavallo.

Caciocavallo Podolico is a slow food worthy of its name. The cheese is handmade using traditional methods, and aged for at least three months to reach a full and intense flavor. Due to its low milk production, one Podolica cow can produce a limited number of cheeses per month and it is recognized as a Prodotto Agroalimentare Tradizionale (traditional regional food product).

Ready to taste it?

Join our Adopt a Cow Program to get your own slice of this exclusive gourmet cheese! Learn more here

Simple, wholesome Roasted Pumpkin Soup recipe for the soul

Simple, wholesome Roasted Pumpkin Soup Recipe for the holidays!
Roasted Pumpkin Soup Recipe by Valentina Solfrini

Recipe by Valentina Solfrini

Forget the pie, try this Roasted Pumpkin Soup at Thanksgiving with fresh, cold-pressed Extra Virgin Olive Oil! After all, it’s soup season.

You’ll need:

  • Fresh pumpkin
  • EVOO
  • Shallots
  • Sage
  • Rosemary
  • Almond milk
  • Your choice of cooked whole grain
  • Crème fraîche for garnish
  • Roasted pumpkin seeds for garnish
  • Salt & fresh pepper to taste

Directions:

Place pumpkin and shallots on a baking tray and drizzle with fresh Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, minced sage and rosemary and roast until soft.

Once it has cooled down, blend in a blender with a little unsweetened almond milk.

Pour into a large saucepan, simmer until thoroughly heated and serve with your choice of whole grain (whole barley, farro, brown rice or quinoa) for added flavor, texture and nutrition!

Finish it with a drizzle of fresh Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Garnish with crème fraîche and your favorite toasted seeds.

This delicious, savory and flavorful Roasted Pumpkin Soup can be a great first course for Thanksgiving or an easy, healthy, light meal all by itself.

Hope you enjoy this delectable soup and the rest of your Thanksgiving feast.

Here’s why our gourmet olive oils are your best choice for this season!

It’s that time of the year again! The holiday season is just around the corner. And this year, we have added three new groves, which means three new gourmet olive oils for you to explore and celebrate with!

At Especially Puglia, all our extra-virgin olive oils (EVOO) are made using single-sourced olives that are harvested in different groves – making each olive oil truly unique. So pre-order your 2017 harvest olive oil gift boxes now to get them by mid-December, right around the holidays. Here’s more on why you should:

Harvest in 2017 has been excellent!  

Single-source gourmet olive oils made using olives from our family groves.
Handpicked olives at the olive press in Puglia.

Thanks to the olives being in the pink of health this year, the harvest has been par excellence. And you know what that means – the oil is of truly exceptional quality. We are taking limited quantities of pre-orders for our 2017 gourmet olive oils. 

Freshly-pressed gourmet olive oils

Gourmet olive oils from Puglia, Italy
Olives are pressed within eight hours of being picked to ensure the best quality olive oil.

As Julia Child once said – “You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces – just good food from fresh ingredients.” One of the freshest ingredients you can use in your food is our olive oils. Our olives are pressed within eight hours of being handpicked to ensure maximum freshness. And if you’re reading this in Autumn, it means olives are being harvested, freshly pressed, and bottled in our family farms in Puglia.

High on health and happiness

You are what you eat! No wonder then that Italians are such healthy and happy folks. Their healthy Mediterranean diets make generous use of extra-virgin olive oil.

EVOO’s much talked about health benefits are due to the high level of polyphenols – one of the many antioxidants found in olive oil. However, their numbers do take a downswing over time, which is why it is recommended that you consume only freshly-pressed EVOO.

We work with family-owned olive estates to bring single-source olive oil to our customers.
Michele’s grandfather who is the first-generation olive oil maker in Puglia.

Crafted by our family farmers

“Every family in Puglia has an olive grove for personal use and they can take their olives to the press. On my visit, there was a woman watching over the pressing of her olives to make sure they didn’t get mixed up with someone else’s.” One of our FarmStay guests, Jessica, who was in Puglia recently, said this on her Instagram account. The craft of producing authentic olive oil using traditional methods is a way of life for us here in Puglia and has been kept alive by local farmers and producers for many centuries now. At Especially Puglia, one of our biggest endeavors is to share this age-old Pugliese tradition with the rest of the world.

100% authentic olive oils

At Especially Puglia, we have redefined how food is made, distributed and consumed. Our farm-to-table approach ensures that you get the most authentic extra-virgin olive oil.  We have made the entire process transparent to our customers. Our FarmStay program allows consumers to become an active part of the life on our farms, and get a hands-on experience of how we actually make our gourmet olive oils.

Adopt An Olive Tree gift box makes for the perfect gift this holiday season!
Especially Puglia’s gourmet olive oils from Puglia.

 

 

 

The Extra Virgin Olive Oils of Puglia

The soul of Puglia lies in its olive orchards. Blanketing rolling hills that recede to craggy coastlines and crystalline Mediterranean seascapes, Pugliese olive trees represent millennia of more than just extra virgin olive oil production—they embody the lifeblood of a region.

When you taste Pugliese extra virgin olive oil, you taste the terroir from whence it came. Terroir, simply defined as the soil, topography and climate of a growing region, plays into the nuances of an oil's flavor profile, leaving traces and undertones ranging from grassy and floral to mineraly and woodsy. The soil of Northern Puglia, where we source our olives, consists of limestone overlaid with clay and sand with outcrops of mineral-rich red loam, which contributes to complexity of flavor and the persistence of taste on the palate.

While terroir play a principle role in the overall flavor profile of our extra virgin oils, you can't underestimate the importance of production method. By working hand-in-hand with master craftsmen and remaining true to the ethos of small-batch, artisanal production, we offer some of the purest extra virgin olive oils in Southern Italy.

This is how we make our extra virgin olive oils

Picking olives

Picking

We use small fans to shake the olive branches just gently enough to knock olives to the ground. We gather them in large tubs and bring them in for cleaning.

Cleaning olives 2

Cleaning

We pick off the stems and leaves, then wash the olives to remove any soil. No need to wash off pesticides, as they aren't used on our farms!

grinding olives

Grinding

The first step in breaking down the olive is to remove the flesh to release the oil - we do this with a mill, creating a paste that smells out of this world!

finished olive oil

Separating

This is more commonly known as "pressing" - which is when the olive oil is entered into presses / centrifuges and separated from the paste. Then water is separated out, and what's left is an olive oil bursting with flavor.

From Puglia to your table - Order our oils here

Adopt an olive tree with us and enjoy your own extra virgin olive oil. We are now taking pre-orders for the 2017 harvest of olio nuovo!

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From cow to plate, Caciocavallo Podolico cheese production explained

The Caciocavallo Podolico is a traditional cheese produced with cow’s milk from a specific breed of cattle living in designated areas of Puglia. Caciocavallo is a stretched curd cheese that is made by kneading curd whilst it’s still hot. This process makes the curd firm and elastic, but the Caciocavallo becomes quite hard as it ages.

The process:

The “creation” process of this cheese is difficult to describe – a delicate operation that requires practice and skills. It is produced throughout the year, but the full-pace production takes place from March to May only. The maturation time ranges from three months to over a year.

To really appreciate the love and craftsmanship going into each cheese, we broke them production process down into 10 steps:

  1. The first step is to acidify and heat the milk, the Caciocavallo Podolico is a Pasta Filata or stretched curd style in which the cheese proteins develop a unique character for forming long chains and will stretch out into long threads when heated.
  2. Once a small amount of lactic acid has been produced, rennet is added to develop a firm curd
  3. The curd is cut to release the whey and then stirred up
  4. The curd is heated again to reach desired moisture
  5. Then it is time to remove the whey and place the curd into draining bags
  6. The curds are then kept warm to achieve better flavor. This is a delicate step as the acid level and temperature needs to be perfect for the cheese to be able to stretch while keeping its shape later
  7. The stretch of the cheese realigns the proteins and gives it its unique texture
  8. The cheese is shaped by hand into its signature pear shape and then chilled in cold water
  9. The cheese goes into brine
  10. The final step is to hang the cheese to mature until ready to eat, usually aging about three months or more to reach the full and intense flavor that is associated with the Caciocavallo!

How to enjoy it?

The Caciocavallo Podolico is often enjoyed paired with bread and honey, or simply on its own. You can of course also try a barbequed version, the so called “Caciocavallo Impiccato” or inside an oven with a clay pot of terracotta.  Adopt a cow now and share the love!

 

Podolica cows: the history of traditional cheese in Puglia

Stories of food telling about travels – the Podolica Cow of Puglia

Italy is a country where artisanship and food unite to tell an amazing story: They complement each other, they enrich each other. Undeniably, cheese is one of these poetic protagonists and storytellers when it tells a story of travel: the “transumanza”, or transhumance of Podolica cows.

In Puglia, if you walk through the forests of Gargano and Monti Dauni (Daunia mountains), you readily hear the echoes of some bells down the valleys: These are the bells of Podolica cows, the true masters of this landscape. It is from Podolia in Eastern Europe that thousands of years ago the Podolica cows “migrated” in long convoys. Direct descendants of the “Bos Primigenius” breed, the ancestor of all existing breeds of cows, the animal found its ideal habitat in southern Italy among woods and mountains. The Podolica cow quickly adapted to an outdoor-life in all weather conditions. In fact, to this day Podolica cows do not live in stables, but in a wild state, migrant and nomadic by nature. They travel for several kilometres a day in search of wild herbs. For this reason, they do not accumulate fat and they produce little milk – but the milk they do give carries the taste and aroma of grassy paths and forest fragrances.

The long grassy paths of Italy

Millions of animals – such as goats, sheep, horses, and cows – have participated in the ritual of “transumanza”, or transhumance, for thousands of years.These herds move from the Abruzzo mountains to the plains of Puglia, in pursuit of green pastures that span boot-shaped Italy. Wide paths of over 100 meters, dotted with fountains, taverns, and churches, are enlivened by the intense life of shepherds accompanying the cows and joined by their faithful shepherd dogs.

These fabulous paths, (called tratturi in the traditional local dialect) the “sheep tracks,” come alive in the childhood memories of elderly people, like grasslands in an idyllic world, almost disappeared today. They recall green pastures of daisies covered here and there by the tiny “umbrellas” of edible mushrooms, old paths of the traditional shepherds, who – covered by goatskin leather and accompanied by enormous shepherd dogs – drove the herds and conveyed the idea of primordial human migrations. Nowadays, Puglia preserves a few traces of these ancient customs. They are precious symbols of an ancient civilization, which you can touch and relive through the experience of transhumance.

The Caciocavallo cheese

The “Caciocavallo” cheese is a noble one, with an extraordinary maturation capability that further enhances its special sensory characteristics, such as fragrant herbs, bitter flowers, vanilla, and spices, making it one of the most aromatic mature cheeses in Italy. The production of Caciocavallo Podolico in Puglia is concentrated on the promontory of Gargano, where the cheese is still being produced for consumption and sale by families and in local markets. The “creation” process of this cheese is full of poetry and actually indescribable – a delicate operation that requires practice and skills. It is produced throughout the year, but the full-pace production takes place from March to May only. The maturation time ranges from three months to over a year.

There are three SlowFood-certificated producers of Caciocavallo Podolico cheese. Among them we visited Mr. Giuseppe Bramante at Masseria Paglicci, a beautiful and impressive rural farmhouse on the slopes of Gargano, which is one of the most important in the area for transhumances from Abruzzo to Puglia.

A slow-paced life, yet delicious

The extraordinary adaptability of the Podolica cows – their resistance to diseases and their rustic nature – enabled them to spread throughout Italy. However, today the breed’s aversion to stable life, limited daily yield of milk, and, fibrous and tough meats are causing a significant reduction in their population. Currently, the Podolica lives in the southern regions only (in Campania, Calabria, Basilicata and Puglia) and is often meticciata (cross bred). Back in 1983, we could count about 100 thousand pure specimens; today only 25 thousand animals are actually registered in the genealogical tree for this specific breed. Their movement through pristine landscapes and wild herbs infuses their milk with special and distinctive flavors and characteristics.

 

Food52 Partners with Especially Puglia’s Adopt an Olive Tree Program

Especially Puglia is excited to announce a new partner: Food52! Food52 is a rapidly-growing online community of cooks and food lovers who believe that “how you eat is how you live.” Just like us, the Food52 community is passionate about having authentic culinary experiences and access to quality ingredients to prepare great meals.
Our founder, Michele Iadarola, sat down with Food52 to tell them about our Adopt an Olive Tree program – and how it helps wellness-minded home cooks here in the States access farm-to-table olive oil from Pugliese farms. Food52 was so excited about what we do that they are offering their readers the opportunity to adopt an olive tree through their website. We are also a part of Food52’s wedding registry – so newly-engaged readers, register now! With Food52 we are expanding our reach so that hundreds more can cook more sustainably, healthfully, and happily.

Read about Michele’s conversation with Food52 here, and learn more about the Adopt-an-Olive Tree program. To get your hands on this incredible single-origin, extra virgin olive oil, order here.

We are honored and thrilled that Food52 is partnering with us to bring the harvest of Puglia to tables across the country!

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Find Especially Puglia’s olive oil on the Food52 Registry!

Sott’olio (or Sottolio): Vegetables in Olive Oil, The Italian Way

The best way to eat a vegetable is to pick at its peak ripeness, when it is full of flavor and packed with nutrients. Farmers have known this in Puglia for generations, and have developed a technique that  keeps the flavor of a perfectly ripe vegetable year round. The preservation method, known as sott’olio meaning “under the oil”, preserves some of the most delicate vegetables- artichokes, mushrooms, asparagus, olives- in extra virgin olive oil.

Italian Sottolio, Vegetables in Olive Oil

From start to finish this Pugliese style of preservation takes several days from harvesting to the final drip of olive oil. The result is a delectable side dish served year round across the region.

How the Sott’olio Method Works

Every family has their own recipes for sott’olio in Puglia, but the process starts the same. At the peak of ripeness farmers go out to the fields to harvest the vegetables. Many commercial brands do not use fresh vegetables; rather they use semi-preserved vegetables, which diminishes the flavor and quality of the final product. In Puglia, farmers take the ripe vegetables indoors to be cleaned and prepped for the cooking stage.  The vegetables are then boiled in white wine vinegar until they are cooked al-dente. They are then cooled to room temperature and tossed with salt and a mix of spices such as black pepper, chili pepper, garlic etc. This is where every family differs, with recipes transferred from generation to generation.

Once the vegetables have absorbed the flavors they are packed into jars, and covered with extra virgin olive oil. Olive oil acts as a natural preservative by keeping air away from the food, which is the source of spoilage. Unlike many commercial brands that use cheaper oils like sunflower for preservation, Especially Puglia’s sott’olio is made with extra virgin olive oil, which has healthy benefits and keeps the natural flavors of the vegetables intact.

For a Puglia family, this is where the process would end and they would enjoy vegetables for the rest of the year. To commercially sell sott’olio, a special technique to pasteurize the product is used to keep the integrity of the extra virgin olive oil as well as the flavor of the vegetables. The end result is a lovely vegetable preserved in delicious olive oil.

Eating Sott’olio Style Vegetables

Sott’olio are delicious as an antipasto platter as well as a side dish to a lovely fish dinner or roast. Olive tapenade or artichoke tapenade are perfect on top of toasted bread as a bruschetta.  Less traditional, but just as delicious, is using the sott’olio vegetables in salads, using the olive oil to make a delightful dressing. The vegetables, prepared in this method will keep for up to two years if stored in a dry, cool place.

Where to Find Sott’olio Vegetables

Especially Puglia’s winter Farmshare includes asparagus and artichoke sott’olios as well as the artichoke and black olive tapenade. These high-quality traditional sott`oli vegetables are hard to find outside of Puglia. Sign up for your Farmshare now and enjoy these savory Pugliese delights.

Fave e Cicoria | Fava bean puree with wild chicory

This simple, traditional Puglia dish is known in Italy as fave e cicoria. If the chicory is hard to find you can substitute it with young dandelion leaves that are similar to the bitter chicory.

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Ingredients:

500 g dried, peeled fava beans, 1 kg wild chicory (or dandelion), extra virgin olive oil, 1 clove garlic, 2-3 bay leaves, salt, pepper, water — [ serves 4 ]

Preparation:

Cook the beans and bay leaves with 3-4 pinches of salt, add enough water to just cover. Cover and leave to simmer for 2-3 hours until it has a puree consistency. Add water if needed and season to taste with salt and pepper. Meanwhile wash chicory leaves and cook in boiling water with a pinch of salt for 20-30 minutes. Heat olive oil in a different pan and add crushed (with pestle and mortar, not to a mush but rather just broken up a little) garlic. Add drained, cooked chicory almost right away. Cook for 10-15 minutes and season with salt and pepper at the end. Serve together by spooning fava bean puree on one side of the plate and the chicory leaves on the other. Drizzle with olive oil. Eat chicory like you would spaghetti, by twirling it on your fork. The bitter taste of the leaves are in perfect harmony with the fava bean’s sweet, creamy texture.

Harvest is here!

It is that time of the year again! During the month of November, all of Puglia smells of olive oil. The rich aroma hangs in the air miles away from the mills where the farmers hurry to bring in the harvest of olives. The time of the year when the people of Puglia crowd around the mills to watch the fresh extra-virgin olive oil stream out of the spout is just a few weeks away.

The harvest is a time for celebration. One of our founder Michele Iadarola’s favorite harvest traditions is farmers and their families waiting for their oil to flow from the press. As the freshly-pressed olive oil is distributed into tins, the the farmers pour it over bread with a pinch of salt and shared with everyone waiting.  For Michele and his family, the day of the harvest is a day of family gathering. After returning from the frantoio (mill), the family’s dinner begins with the best way to taste the fresh olive oil: the simplest of bruschetta. And of course, what celebration would be complete without a nice glass of red wine?

When you receive your order, be sure to use just as we do – spread it over bruschetta bread with a pinch of salt and pair it with a glass of robust red wine, such as the Primitivo or Negroamaro from Puglia!

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Contact Us

Especially Puglia
c/o Industry City
67 35th St., Ste. C536
Brooklyn, NY 11232
+1 (718) 801-8844
info@especiallypuglia.com