Olive Oil, Yellow Gold

For most people, Sardinia is synonymous with turquoise seas and some of the most beautiful coastlines in the world. Yet Sardinia is also steeped in history, nuraghes and stunning landscapes.  An island where, in Luras in the Sassari region, a 4,000-year-old olive tree stands as the "Patriarch of Nature". This tree, measuring 14 m in height and with a circumference of 1154 cm, won first prize as the "Italian Tree of the Year" in 2023.
Many monumental olive trees can be found in Santa Maria Navarrese, in Ogliastra, a region between sea and mountains, where—as in all of Sardinia—the olive oil is world-famous. The olive trees are like something out of a painting, in incredible shades of green.  In southern Sardinia, "Olia Speciosa" is a village near the legendary Costa Rei, whose name is Latin and means "excellent olive". In Villacidro (Cagliari), the centuries-old olive trees of San Sisinnio have been immortalized in the writings of the author Giuseppe Dessì. In Barbagia, at the foot of Monte Corrasi in the Sardinian Dolomites, lies the village of Oliena. The city’s name means "ever-flowing well of oil" and refers to the oil of intense colour and captivating aroma it produces. Grazia Deledda, the Sardinian writer and recipient of the 1926 Nobel Prize in Literature, gave literary acclaim to this olive oil.
Today, olive processing—a tradition dating back to the Romans, who used grooved basalt presses—has been modernized, and women often lead these businesses. The key to their success? "La terra sarda," a world unto itself in pristine nature.

Text by Giacomo Mameli, writer