With over 120 years of experience in the oil art, Carapelli is synonymous with quality extra virgin olive oil in Italy and abroad. Carapelli's success is linked to the attention and care that the company has always placed in the enhancement of extra virgin olive oil: through the selection of the best oils, the commitment to innovation that always respects tradition, the dedication to responding to consumer preferences and needs. EXTRA VIRGIN olive oil is a natural condiment because it is obtained from the pressing of a fresh fruit: the olive. The flavour, color and chemical and organoleptic characteristics of the oil depend on numerous natural factors such as the variety or cultivar of the plant, the latitude and climate, the vintage, the type of soil and the harvesting method. In Italy there are more than 500 cultivars, of which 33 in Tuscany alone; among the best known varieties are Leccino, Frantoio, Moraiolo, Ogliarola, Coratina, Nocellara del Belice, Gentile, Canino, Biancolilla and Carolea. Between the spring months and the end of summer, the flowers of the olive tree, the little fingers, turn into fruit, the drupe; the maturation process is completed in the months of November and December and takes place very slowly, transforming the size and color of the olive: from green to red to dark purple. Once ripe, the olive is made up of peel, epicarp, pulp, mesocarp, and stone, endocarp, containing the seed. The best time for harvesting is signaled by the color halfway between green and purple (invariata): the harvest continues until the end of January. Hand picking, called brucatura, continues to be the best harvesting method, albeit very expensive, because it ensures the integrity of the olive. Much more frequently today, to obtain a high quality oil, the olives are harvested with modern techniques that respect tradition by mechanically replicating the beating (that is, the shaking of the plant using rods or machines), the shaking or combing (sliding with special rakes along the branches) These techniques allow the olives to be harvested at the right level maturation, intact and healthy, ready to be processed in the mill. The intense work and the use of expert labor explain the great value of the product. Waiting for the ripe olives to fall spontaneously represents the worst method of harvesting the olives because it produces an oil with serious organoleptic defects and high acidity. Once the right degree of ripeness has been reached, the olives are harvested and transported to the mill. After being arranged in layers with a maximum thickness of 10 cm, they are kept in airy rooms for a maximum of 48 hours. Subsequently, the olives are carefully defoliated and washed to eliminate organic residues such as soil. The actual oil extraction process begins with the pressing, i.e. with the crushing of the whole drupe. The extraction can be done following two methods: the traditional or discontinuous one in which the olives are crushed with millstones (large stone wheels) obtaining a paste from which the oil is extracted by pressure with the help of fiscoli (filtering discs ) or the continuous one, in which the olives are crushed through hammer mills. The paste obtained is kneaded (the kneader allows the oil droplets to agglomerate into larger separable drops) and then placed in the decanter (with the addition of water) where, by centrifuge, the oil is separated from the vegetable water and from the residues of olive processing (pomace). The pressing method, kneading times and temperatures, the type of decanter influence the quality and sensory profile of the oil. Depending on the organoleptic profiles detected during tasting, the oils are destined for the production of products in the Carapelli range to respond to the characteristics defined for them. The blends thus obtained are analyzed again, and finally sent to the packaging department where the production lines fill and label up to 350 bottles per minute (20,000 per hour!). Technical checks are performed along the entire production line (capping, labelling, etc.) and on the final product arriving in the warehouse to ensure that the caps and bottles are also suitable and to confirm that the labels have the information defined in the approval phase. The Laboratory repeats, on a sample basis, all the chemical-physical and organoleptic tests to ensure the quality of the product that will be placed on the market.