Mild oil from an old-fashioned olive press in Basilicata.

Although the Basilicata region has an abundance of olive trees, many of the olives are picked by machine and pressed using modern techniques. Not so at Cifarelli Angela, a woman-owned olive press in the hills outside of Matera. Angela harvests her olives by hand beginning in October and oversees every aspect of the production process. Her production quantities are very small and her attention to quality has won her a number of prestigious olive oil awards. (Paul Ferrari heard about Angela's oil long before he tasted it.)

Literally ""oil of sassi,"" this oil is so named for the city of Matera's distinctive limestone cliffs, called sassi. Nomads first burrowed into these dramatic white cliffsides 15,000 years ago and made their cave shelters there. After WWII, the caves were nearly demolished, and in 1952, old Matera was evacuated. In 1993, the sassi were declared a World Heritage Site and are today in the process of being restored.

Harvest date: 2007/2008"