Garda

Appearance & taste

The oil is green to a more or less intense yellow. It smells lightly to medium fruity, tastes fruity and has a sweet note with a typical almond-like aftertaste. According to the specification, its aroma and flavour are less intense and more delicate than those of oils from warmer growing areas further south. In tasting, fruitiness and pungency are limited to at most 6, bitterness and the almond note to at most 5; the oil must have no defects.

The acidity is at most 0.5 % and the peroxide value at most 14 meq O₂/kg. The name “Garda” must appear on the label larger than all other information, together with the harvest year and the PDO logo. It can be supplemented by “Bresciano”, “Orientale” or “Trentino” if the olives, pressing and bottling come from the respective sub-area. Additions such as “fine”, “scelto”, “selezionato” or “superiore” are not permitted, whereas stating a single variety (“monovarietale”) is.

Production

For “Garda”, “Garda Bresciano” and “Garda Orientale”, at least 55 % of the trees in the groves must be Casaliva, Frantoio or Leccino; for “Garda Trentino”, at least 80 % must be Casaliva and Frantoio. Growing and harvesting the olives and extracting the oil take place in the defined area.

Bottling also takes place in the area, in containers of at most 5 litres. According to the specification, the local producers know when and how the oil should be filtered and decanted and at what temperature it is best bottled. Bottling in the area is intended to preserve the characteristics of the oil, which would otherwise quickly suffer from contact with oxygen.

Origin & history

The olives grow in an “amphitheatre” of glacial moraine hills around Lake Garda, bordered by the Alps to the north. On the land facing the lake and the south, almost nothing but olives and vines is grown. The large lake and the mountains provide warm but not sultry summers, winters that are not very cold and moderate differences between day and night; the specification calls the climate “Mediterranean-temperate”. Rainfall is well distributed over the year, and the soils on the south-facing slopes warm up quickly after winter. According to the specification, the various microclimates from the plain to the mountain slopes allow differences that “only experts can perceive”.

According to the specification, olive growing on Lake Garda has been documented since the Renaissance, when people began to terrace the slopes systematically. The olive terraces facing the lake are so typical that since 1968 the area has also been called the “Riviera of Olives”. The additional terms “Bresciano”, “Trentino” and “Orientale” go back to old documents that used them to designate “certain areas of particular importance for the customs of the people and the administration”.