Frantoio Franci

History

Frantoio Franci is a family-run olive mill (frantoio) in Montenero d'Orcia, in the Maremma hills of southern Tuscany, established in 1958 and built into one of Italy's most decorated extra virgin olive oil producers. The family grows and mills olives from the Tuscan hills, working the classic Tuscan varieties (Frantoio, Leccino, Moraiolo, Olivastra Seggianese among them) and pressing them quickly after harvest into peppery, green, robust oils that win consistently at the major international olive oil competitions. The defining issue with olive oil, and the reason a transparent single-estate producer matters, is that the category is one of the most adulterated and misrepresented in the food world. A large share of oil sold as extra virgin is either not genuinely extra virgin (failing the chemical and sensory standards), is blended from multiple countries and old harvests despite an Italian-sounding label, or is rancid by the time it reaches the consumer because olive oil is perishable and degrades with time, heat, and light. Investigations and the Italian oil fraud scandals made this notorious. A producer like Franci offers the protection of a transparent, single-estate or closely controlled supply chain, a recent harvest date on the bottle, and a verifiable quality reputation backed by competition results and, for some lines, PDO or IGP status (Tuscan IGP). The cook's key insight is freshness and use: extra virgin olive oil is a fresh product with a harvest date, best used within a year to eighteen months of pressing, and a genuine high-quality EVOO is a finishing oil as much as a cooking one, drizzled raw over soup, bread, beans, or grilled vegetables where its peppery, grassy character is the point. The Franci oils, particularly the flagship Villa Magra, are intense, green, and high in polyphenols (the source of the peppery throat-catch and of the oil's stability and health properties), which makes them finishing oils to be tasted, not anonymous frying fat. The honest framing is that for high-heat cooking a cheaper, fresher, honest oil is fine and the expensive single-estate EVOO is wasted, while for finishing, the difference between a fresh, genuine, peppery Tuscan oil and a stale supermarket blend is dramatic and immediate. Franci's value is as a benchmark of what real Tuscan extra virgin olive oil tastes like and a transparent source in a category riddled with fraud, the olive oil equivalent of what Giusti is for balsamic: the producer you buy to understand the real thing, against which the supermarket version reveals itself as a different and lesser product.

How they work

Frantoio Franci grows and mills olives from the Tuscan Maremma hills, working classic Tuscan varieties (Frantoio, Leccino, Moraiolo, Olivastra Seggianese). The quality method centers on harvesting the olives at the right stage and milling them quickly after picking, often within hours, because the longer harvested olives sit the more the oil degrades; cold extraction preserves the volatile aromatic compounds and the polyphenols that give a Tuscan oil its peppery, grassy character and its stability. The oils are unfiltered or lightly filtered depending on the line and bottled with a harvest date, treating EVOO as the fresh, perishable product it is. Higher-end lines carry Tuscan IGP status and competition pedigree as external validation in a category notorious for fraud. The flagship robust oils are high in polyphenols, the source of both the throat-catching pepperiness and the oil's resistance to oxidation. The guarantee is the single-estate or closely controlled supply, the recent harvest date, the cold extraction, and the verifiable competition and appellation credentials, against the blended, multi-country, stale, or non-extra-virgin oil that fills much of the supermarket category.

Specialties

• Tuscan extra virgin olive oil
• high-polyphenol robust oils
• single-estate fresh-pressed EVOO

Products from this house on La Pincée

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  Oil · Olive oil

  Tuscan Extra Virgin Olive Oil IGP

  Tuscany (Chianti, Lucca, Siena, Florence), Italy (IGP)

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  Oil · Olive oil

  Provence PDO Olive Oil

  Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône, Vaucluse, Var, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence), France (PDO)

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  Oil · Olive oil

  Cretan Extra Virgin Olive Oil PDO

  Sitia, Lassithi, eastern Crete, Greece (PDO)

Where to buy

Franci is sold through specialty and Italian-foods retailers and online; in the UK look to Sous Chef and Italian specialists, in the US to specialty grocers and importers, and direct from frantoiofranci.com. A genuine single-estate Tuscan EVOO like this runs roughly 20 to 40 dollars or pounds for a 500ml bottle, far above supermarket oil and justified by freshness, transparency, and quality. Practical advice: buy a recent harvest, the bottle should state a harvest date, and use a fresh, genuine high-quality EVOO as a finishing oil, drizzled raw over soup, bread, beans, grilled vegetables, or a steak after resting, where its peppery, grassy character is the whole point. Do not pour expensive single-estate oil into a deep fryer or a high-heat pan, where the nuance is lost and a cheaper fresh oil does the job; keep an everyday oil for cooking and the Franci for finishing. Check for a harvest date and, where relevant, an IGP or PDO mark, and prefer a dark bottle or tin, since light degrades the oil. Buy a size you will finish within about a year of pressing, because EVOO is perishable and a half-used bottle going rancid is the most common waste in this category; store it cool, dark, and tightly closed, never above the stove. The category is one of the most adulterated in food, so a transparent producer with competition pedigree is the protection against the blended, stale, or mislabeled oil common on supermarket shelves. For understanding what real Tuscan extra virgin olive oil tastes like, a single fresh Franci bottle is the instructive purchase, the olive-oil counterpart to a good aged balsamic.

Official site of Frantoio Franci →