Beloved Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio is credited with describing the view from the seafront of Reggio Calabria, where the Mediterranean and Ionian seas meet, as “the most beautiful kilometer in Italy.”
But beyond its stunning views, the mix of seas and the unique microclimate created by the Apennine mountain range offer idyllic conditions for citrus bergamot.
Grown almost exclusively for centuries along a 90-kilometre stretch of the Ionian coast, the toe of Italy’s boot, the fruit’s essential oil has been a prized ingredient in perfumes, luxury cosmetics and even Earl Gray tea. , sought after for its complex citrus aroma. note in perfumes and ability to fix odors on the skin.
“It is a miracle of nature,” said Ezio Pizzi, president of the Bergamot Consortium, which in 2001 obtained the European Union’s coveted Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) for the essential oil.
“To think that this plant was brought from Sicily and planted here, 15 kilometers away, in this incredible microclimate that has given it incredible qualities.”
Over time, the Calabrians discovered the numerous benefits of oil extracted from the skin of fruit harvested while it was still green: from repelling mosquitoes and flies to acting as a powerful disinfectant and improving the longevity and diffusion of a fragrance.
However, in the late 1960s, the invention of synthetic oil caused the value of pure bergamot to plummet, leading landowners to cut down their trees. For almost 25 years, bergamot cultivation ceased in the region.
Then, in the early ’90s, the rise of organic products sparked renewed interest, especially from French perfumeries. Pizzi, a member of one of the few land-owning families that had not destroyed their orchards, gathered a group of producers and relaunched the production of essential oils, forming a consortium.
“We were able to double the price from 18 cents a liter to 36 the first year,” he said. “Now a liter costs one euro.”
Today, Pizzi says, the DOP area of Calabria produces 80 percent of the world’s bergamot.
However, until just over a decade ago, the pulp of the fruit was left aside, mainly as animal feed.
Prized juice once demonized
“I grew up with my mother telling me that if I ate bergamot, my hands would fall off,” said Vittorio Caminiti, a native historian and founder of the small, cozy National Museum of Bergamot., Located up a flight of stairs on a side street in Reggio Calabria.
Criminiti says that wealthy landowners demonized the fruit’s juice, claiming it was toxic, to prevent local farmers from consuming it and thus ensure that the bergamot harvest remained exclusively under their management for oil extraction. Before industrialization, He finds that it took 400 bergamots to produce just one liter of oil.
“If someone died? I had eaten a bergamot. If a woman had an abortion? I had eaten a bergamot. Any ailment was attributed to bergamot,” he said. “There were too many trees to patrol, so instead of arresting or beating people for eating them, they created a myth.”
In the mid-1990s, Caminiti began experimenting with juice and eventually realized that he had to wait until the bergamot ripened to an orange color before eating or drinking. She participated in a contest with a cake she made with bergamot juice and won first prize.
Culinary media in Italy picked up the story, expressing outrage or disbelief.
“I would give them recipes with bergamot and then they would call the head of the bergamot consortium, who would tell them he was crazy,” he said.
Health benefits
Shortly after, the first scientific studies were carried out in Italy that showed that bergamot juice lowered blood pressure and cholesterol, and later ones that demonstrate potential to control diabetes.
The discovery of the juice’s health benefits has attracted new producers to the market, such as Fabio Trunfio, 50, who runs Patea Bergamot Agriculture Firm, a 20-minute drive from the Pizzi plantations.
Trunfio entered the bergamot oil market in 2007, expanding its production to include juice and fruit sales in 2010.
Frustrated by what he claims is the failure of the Pizzi Bergamot Consortium to vigorously promote the juice, he and other producers have launched a bid to have their own designation of origin in the EU: Protected Geographical Indication (PGI). .
Like DOP, IGP focuses on the regional reputation of the product, but offers more flexibility to ensure authenticity.
Trunfio and his group are also applying for IGP certification.
“Once we obtain our PGI, we will be able to do everything we can to publicize the incredible qualities of Calabrian bergamot juice,” Trunfio said, “and finally obtain a government certificate attesting to the cholesterol-lowering properties of bergamot juice. ”.
However, the head of the DOP consortium, Ezio Pizzi, is contesting Trunfio and others’ plan for a PGI, striving to retain control of the product through the more exclusive DOP, which he claims deserves it. He complains that new producers in the area are flooding the market, causing prices, already hit when sales of duty-free perfumes stagnated during the pandemic, to drop even further.
As Calabrian bergamot producers fight for the management of their brand, the more important issue of climate change arises. Across Italy, concerns are growing about the vulnerability of monocultures, evident in everything from vineyards to olive groves.
But extreme summer temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns have hit citrus growers in southern Italy especially hard. Last summer, intense heat and drought in Sicily transformed oranges and lemons into hard, shriveled nuts, with yields falling by up to 40 percent.
For now, Calabria’s aquifers have been sufficient to compensate for the lack of rainfall, and only a small portion of the fruit suffers from the heat. But producers warn that that could change.
“We normally stop watering in September,” says Pizzi. “This year there has barely been a drop of rain and, for the first time that I can remember, we are still watering in December.”
He says he is now in talks with regional politicians about installing desalination plants or using gray water from sinks, showers or washing machines for irrigation.
But unless action is taken soon, Calabria risks its hard-earned reward slipping away once again.
