Sicily will be in the spotlight this month during National Olive Oil Week which kicks off at the weekend.
Now in its 10th year, National Olive Oil Week seeks to promote extra virgin or first cold-pressed olive oil as well as the areas where it is produced.
Sicily was chosen for being the only Italian region last year to boost production, by 12%, while the rest of the country recorded a 13.5 drop.
The 'week' actually lasts more than seven days and began with a sneak preview in Siena last weekend where a series of courses and tastings were offered with over 130 different oils presented.
On Friday there will be a lavish tasting of the best Sicilian olive oils presented at the capital's Wine Academy
and the five-star Hassler Hotel, atop the Spanish Stairs. The event's official opening will be on Saturday morning when the now-traditional Golden Cruet awards will be handed out to those who have distinguished themselves in promoting the 'culture' of olive oil.
Among those receiving the prize this year will be former German interior minister Otto Schily, Italian journalist Isabella Bossi Fedrigotti and renowned Sicilian chef Ciccio Sultano.
After the awards ceremony participants will move to the 15th century Medici Fortress where a small, portable olive press, a unique Tuscan invention, will make a symbolic extra virgin olive oil squeeze to inaugurate the week's events. Tastings, along with appreciation courses and seminars, will continue through the rest of the week in Siena, Milan, Rome and Ragusa in a number of venues, including select restaurants which will also offer local gastronomical specialities and dishes.
The week will officially close in Milan with a major tasting. An epilogue to the week will be held in Ragusa, Sicily, March 11 and 12 with a conference on Extra Virgin Olive Oil: It's Qualities and Benefits.
There are some 350 varieties of olive oil in Italy, made from an estimated 210 million trees and employing around 1.2 million people from production through sales. Although it has annnual production in the neighborhood of 700,000 tonnes, Italy has been surpassed in quantity by Spain.
However, Italy today is focusing more on quality and 36 brands have already been awarded the European Union's DPO (Denomination of Protected Origin) seal.
