Cletus extra virgin olive oil is obtained exclusively from our olives, which matured in our own land.
The largely cultivated varieties are: Casaliva , Frantoio , Leccino as well as some typical smaller varieties that find their natural habitat on the shores of the lake: Pendolino and Gargnà.
The harvest is done wiyh mechanical shakers, which are operated by hand, supported by rakes to comb.
The extraction method is a continuous cycle split into three phases. It is performed in the Cooperativa Agricola San Felice del Benaco (sister company). The extraction system enables the separate processing of each delivery.
The olives arrive washed in the mechanical crusher that by turning at high speed causes the breaking of the olives. The crusher consists in a series of hammers/metal blades that are mounted on a rotating disk, inside of a perforated grid, which adjusts the granularity of the olive paste to obtain. Compared to traditional systems, the high speed rotation of the blades tends to extract a greater number of biophenols, that determine the beneficial properties of our oil.
The next stage of the process consists in kneading the olive paste. The kneaders are stainless steel tanks where in the inner a correspondingly shaped arm rotates, slowly stirring the olive paste. This operation promotes the aggregation of the oil droplets in increasingly large drops (phenomenon of coalescence) and enables the separation of oil and most during the final operation of the process.
The temperature of the dough is controlled by cavities located around the kneader where hot water circulates. Each kneader is individually sealed in order to limit the oxidation and loss of flavour due to gas exchange with the external environment.
At the end the decanter allows the separation of the oil from the other components, pulp and water. Essentially, this is a horizontal centrifuge; inside there is a rotating conical cylinder where a headless screw rotates at a lower speed removing the solid constituents. The separation of the oil from the water happens naturally due to the different specific weight. The oil thus obtained from each batch arrives directly on a Wage; then a small amount is taken for chemical analysis of the acid and hydrogen peroxide to make a first qualitative classification.
The oil is worked in a protected environment under nitrogen at a controlled temperature of 13-15 ° C in order to slow down the natural degradation process. The oil is then filtered and stored in stainless steel tanks, which are the exclusive property of the Company Cletus.
