Everything began in the year 1965. But like with any other beginning, there is a time of preparation. A time in which Mazzarrini Roberto, due to a lucky turn of events, together with his ambitious work, inherited, found and bought the first building blocks that started our business. This started the 29th of january 1959, when he married Fernanda Gilli, after a ten-year engagement. On the 12th of March of the following year their first and only son, Alberto, was born. While providing for his family in the difficult period after the war, Roberto looked after their general well-being, while Fernanda dealt with the details. What was Roberto busy though? Three things: helping his father and uncles with their smithing, all year long; provided his harvester and other machines to farmers from March to September; assembling and testing olive mills for the Veraci firm from October to february. You may have noticed that the focus of these three hard jobs is iron. So one could say Mazzarrini Roberto is a “person of iron!”
This is where we have to start analyzing. What would you say if i were to exclaim: “Why is history, which provides meaning to what we do and who we are today, so difficult to find and develop?!” The first job diminished and vanished as his relatives died. He had to quit the second after his son Alberto developed an allergy to Poaceae (TN: grass). The third, he decided to make his own. He stopped being a seasonal worker for Veraci and opened his own oil mill, in Rigomagno, at Via della Croce 8, up until the year 1985 when it was moved to Via Palazzolo 5, since he wanted firstly to build his own house and not have to share it, and also, and mostly, because his son married Anna Chietti the 9th of September 1982, after three years of engagement. And that’s when Romolo was born, the 31st of July 1984, also an only child, to ensure the integrity of capital, since there is no more unassailable right of the firstborn. Roberto died the 27th of March 2009. He never became a greatgrandfather, because he decided to support, together with Alberto, his grandson’s studies. Romolo graduated as an “agricultural expert” in the agro-industrial sector at the Public Technological Industrial Institute “A.Vegni”, after which obtaining a Bachelors Degree in Food Sciences and Technologies in 2010 and a Masters in Agricultural Sciences and Technologies in 2013. While studying, Romolo of course helped the family business, especially after his grandfathers death.
Like nearly all families who live in small towns in the countryside, the Mazzarrini’s hve always owned a small olive grove. The business officially starts in 1990, held by Mazzarrini Alberto and Chietti Anna. Today it consists of 7 hectares of forest, 7 hectares of olive grove, 1.5 hectare of vineyard, and about 1.5 hectares of arable land. The olive grove, our focus for now, contains about 3000 trees, 2200 of which were grown from offshoots. The rest are preexisting and their origin has been lost to time. The ground, which is at about 450m (TN: a little less than 1500 ft.) above sea level, is largely rocky. The trees are mostly Leccino, with a splash of Frantoio, Moraiolo and Pendolino mixed in. They are cultivated with a 5x5m space reserved for each plant and are vase pruned. Two times a year the earth is plowed and grass is cut. The harvest proceeds with two passes, with machines first, and by hand-picking afterwards. The olives are then pressed the same day. The wholecompany operates biologically, which means that other techniques, such as copper application (TN: a common strategy against pests) and fertilization, are kept to a minimum.
