Special encounters
Fabrizio en El Rojo
We are sitting in the local bar MyCoffee in Morano Calabro, a beautiful small Calabrian hill village, enjoying a drink and the mild late-summer weather of October. The peak tourist season, which isn't particularly busy here anyway, has long passed. Everyone in the bar is local and wonders what two young, limited Italian-speaking Dutch people are doing here. Soon, we strike up a conversation with Fabrizio, the singer and founder of an Italian heavy rock band with the unique Spanish (!) name "El Rojo."
We chat for a while about our journey through the south of Italy, and he tells us about his love for Calabria and why this region is visited so little by tourists. He doesn't want to go beyond saying, "certain forces in this region are not interested in tourists." We all know what forces he's referring to and leave it at that. We discuss Italian grunge rock, wine, and all the other important things in life. At one point, he asks about our dinner plans and whether we'd like to join him for dinner tonight.
A little later, after climbing some of the many stairs that Moreno Calabro has to offer, we find ourselves at the kitchen table in perhaps the most stylishly decorated apartment in Calabria. Dinner starts with Laura's antipasti, a friend of Fabrizio with her own small farm, who joins us for dinner along with Antonio, the drummer of El Rojo. In no time, she presents thinly sliced self-smoked bacon from her own pigs, accompanied by various vegetable dishes. Then she shows us her most special product: dried Calabrian peppers strung together by a string. The peppers are fried, and we get to taste them. The crispy peppers are mild, slightly sweet, and smoky in flavor.
After the antipasti, we receive our primo. It's autumn, and Fabrizio has recently searched for and dried porcini mushrooms. When one of us asks how he knows for sure that these mushrooms are edible, Fabrizio reassuringly says, "If you pick the wrong ones, you'll find out quickly. You don't make those kinds of mistakes a second time." He prepares a delicious pasta that's finished not with grated cheese but with crumbled fried peppers. They call it Pepe cruschi in Calabria, we're told. The wine flows generously, and soon, the best farmers and winemakers in the area are discussed. And, like every Italian, Fabrizio, Laura, and Antonio have a clear and proud opinion about quality and local products. One thing we have to promise is that the next day we will visit Cantine Viola, because they all agree on one thing: Alessandro Viola and his brothers and father make the best wine for miles around.
After an extensive introduction to Fabrizio's homemade liqueur collection, we decide in the middle of the night that it's time to head back to our B&B. After all, we made a promise: Cantine Viola is on the agenda for the next day. So, as promised, we visit Alessandro, and we taste his fantastic Moscato Passito di Saracena, a unique dessert wine that has no equal. On just four hectares of land, the Viola family cultivates, in addition to Moscato, two other native grape varieties. From these, they make two very special red wines and an elegant, complex white wine.
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Scarcity leads to higher prices and more tampering.
The price of olive oil has skyrocketed in recent years, with the last year setting an absolute record. Unfortunately, our farmers are also feeling the pinch, leading to increased prices for us as well. This surge has many causes. Harvests are being affected by droughts in Southern Europe and by increasing olive diseases spread by insects. Moreover, labor costs for olive picking are rising, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to find people for this task. Together, these factors contribute to a high price of the basic product: the olive. Additionally, producers are facing inflation in packaging materials and the energy required in the production process. Price hikes are evident across the entire market spectrum, affecting both small-scale quality oil production and mass-produced supermarket varieties.