The history of the Taggiasca olive: when was the union between the olive tree and Liguria born?
Several archaeologists and botanists have made known the presence of the olive tree in Liguria as early as the seventh century BC.
At the time, the Greeks of Phocaea, a colony of Asia Minor, brought the olive tree to Southern Gaul.
Here they founded Massaglia, today’s Marseille and colonized Nice.
From the south of France to the province of Imperia the distance is short.
Another hypothesis of some historians is to settle it in the Ligurian west imported from the Holy Land at the time of the Crusaders.
The historical presence of the olive tree in Liguria
In support of an already historical presence of the olive tree in Liguria, we find a document from 774 AD.
In this document, Charlemagne grants Guinibaldo, abbot of Bobbio, a “farm with olive grove”.
In 979 A.D. a petition by settlers was issued to the bishop of Genoa to rent some land in the area between Ceriana and Taggia, on which the clause “excluding olive groves” was born.
From these documents we note that the olive tree was already cultivated in Liguria, albeit to a modest extent, before the arrival of the Benedictine monks from the islands of Lerino (today’s Provence) in western Liguria.
The latter increased olive cultivation in Liguria, rationalizing cultivation methods, as well as attributing the origin of the name of the cultivar to the place where the nurseries were planted.
From Taggia to other Italian areas
From Taggia this cultivar also spread to other areas of Italy.
In no other area, however, it never grew with unique organoleptic characteristics as in the province of Imperia.
Here, to remedy the conformation of the land with steep hills overlooking the sea and therefore not very suitable for olive cultivation, the monks began to create dry stone terraces.
They were very complex and very tiring, but they transform the Ligurian hills into a splendid amphitheater overlooking the sea.
They are the same Benedictines who formed the first contracts of Mezzadria.
Bishop Teodolfo stipulated them in Sanremo in 963 AD. with twenty local families, returning the lands that the church owned to cultivation after the expulsion of the Saracens.
However, we note that from any area this plant comes, it was in the Imperia territory that it found the most favorable conditions for its development.
Today, this olive is called Taggiasca and its characteristics and peculiarities are found only in this territory that extends from the French border to Capo Mele.
Thanks to the quality of the soil, atmospheric conditions and human fatigue, this olive becomes one of the most delicate oils in the world.
In the late Middle Ages, however, the olive tree was considered a secondary plant in the local economy.
It was often used to mark borders and other crops.
The oil mill
The first “okra”, a Ligurian term that indicates the mill, is mentioned in official documents for the first time in 1205.
A certain Bonaventura Marzano di Ardizzone cited it, who granted the abbot of S. Stefano a fund in Villaregia.
In the statutes of Apricale of 1267, for the first time in Liguria, protection was set for the fruit of the olive tree with penalties for those who steal the olives.
In 1357, the duty on oil from the Impero valley was established in Oneglia.
In 1363 in Diano Castello, rules concerning good neighborly relations were sanctioned with a special chapter in the statute “De Gombis olei”: use of oil mills and introduction of the mutual servitude of the “pendane”, to allow the harvest of the fruit fallen into the neighboring land , a custom that has continued to this day.
The upper hand of the olive tree
It is after the mid-1500s that the olive tree dominates the other crops in the area, namely the vine and the fig, also thanks to the opening of overseas trade through navigation.
We are in an era in which the cultivation of the olive tree and its main derivative, oil, are asserting themselves in our area.
Taggiasco oil from Oneglia and Porto Maurizio (today Imperia) is already known as “perfect oil well known throughout Italy”.
But it was in 1700 that the decisive impulse of Taggiasco oil took place.
The wave of frost that hit all of Europe, in particular neighboring France and all the olive groves of the Côte d’Azur, forced the French to buy oil in the nearby province of Imperia.
The price of Taggiasca olive oil increased and it was the moment of greatest expansion of Ligurian olive growing.
This was a driving force for all activities related to the oil trade, but at the same time all other crops were definitively abandoned.
This choice will prove risky, since “from 1788 to 1807 there were two full harvests, five mediocre, eight bad and five null”.
When the vintages were good, however, Ligurian olive oil was transported along ancient communication routes via long caravans of mules, laden with wineskins containing the precious Ligurian gold.
The same thing happened by sea where the ports swarmed with people and oil.
In the Napoleonic period, the Imperia olive oil trade was very significant.
Do you think that, in the subdivision made by the French, this part of the region was called in 1803 “Jurisdiction of olive trees”
The stop and the trend reversal
At the end of the 1800s, precisely with the earthquake of 1887, the cultivation of the olive tree was interrupted.
This stop hit the whole of western Liguria hard but, as the historian Nello Cerisola recalls, it had a positive effect on the economy, since: “From the reconstruction, the local economy receives a beneficial shock and, especially in the Onegliese area, operators begin to their resources, mainly those of the oil sector ”.
With the transformation of society from agricultural-commercial to industrial, the workforce left the countryside to go to work in the cities in the growing industries.
Among these industries, in Imperia, those of oil stood out, which reached such dimensions that they had to import large quantities of oil from abroad or from other regions, setting aside or just skimming the local oil.
The most serious wound inflicted on the Taggiasca olive trees was the indiscriminate cutting of at least 600,000 plants during the First World War since the olive wood served as a substitute for coal in large industrial plants in northern Italy.
There was a turnaround after World War II ended.
Many oil mills, even 976 registered in 1948 in the province of Imperia, resumed their activity due to a growing demand for quality oil from the market.
In recent decades, the enhancement of Taggiasca extra virgin olive oil has grown so much that it is sought after and appreciated all over the world.
