Beloved Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio is famous for describing the view from the promenade of Reggio Calabria, where the Mediterranean and Ionian seas meet, as “the most beautiful kilometer in Italy.”
But beyond its breathtaking views, the mix of seas and the unique microclimate created by the slender Apennine mountain range provide idyllic conditions for citrus bergamot.
Cultivated almost exclusively for centuries along a 90-kilometre stretch of the Ionian coast at the tip of Italy’s boot, the essential oil of this fruit is a prized ingredient in perfumes and luxury cosmetics. and even Earl Gray tea, sought after for its complex, lemony taste. note in perfumes and ability to fix perfumes on the skin.
“It’s 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 (DOP) status for the essential oil. .
“To think that this plant was imported from Sicily and planted here, 15 kilometers away, in this incredible microclimate which gave it incredible qualities.”
Over time, the Calabrians discovered the many benefits of the oil extracted from the skin of the fruit picked while it was still green: repelling mosquitoes and flies, acting as a powerful disinfectant, and improving longevity and spread. of a perfume.
However, in the late 1960s, the invention of synthetic oil caused the value of natural bergamot to plummet, leading landowners to cut down their trees. For almost 25 years, bergamot cultivation ceased in the region.
Then, at the beginning of the 90s, the rise of organic products sparked renewed interest, particularly from French perfumeries. Pizzi, a member of one of the few landowning families who had not destroyed their orchards, gathered a group of producers and restarted the production of essential oils by forming a consortium.
“We were able to double the price from 18 cents per liter to 36 cents in the first year,” he said. “Now we sell for up to one euro per liter.”
Today, Pizzi says, Calabria’s DOP zone produces 80 percent of the world’s bergamot.
However, until a little over a decade ago, the flesh of the fruit was set aside – mainly given to animals.
A popular juice once demonized
“I grew up with my mother telling me that if I ate bergamot my hands would fall off,” said Vittorio Caminiti, local historian and founder of the small and cozy National Bergamot Museum., located at the top of a flight of stairs in a side street in Reggio Calabria.
Criminiti claims that wealthy landowners demonized the fruit juice, claiming it was toxic to prevent local peasants from consuming it and thus ensuring that the bergamot harvest remained under their sole control for oil extraction . Before industrialization, he says it took 400 bergamots to produce a single liter of oil.
“If someone died? They would have eaten a bergamot. If a woman had a miscarriage? She would have eaten a bergamot. Any illness was blamed on bergamot,” he said. “There were too many trees to patrol, so instead of arresting or beating the people who ate them, they created a myth.”
In the mid-1990s, Caminiti began experimenting with this juice, eventually realizing that he had to wait until the bergamot ripened so that it turned orange before eating or drinking it. He entered a competition with a cake he made with bergamot juice and won first prize.
Italian food media picked up the story, expressing outrage or disbelief.
“I would give them recipes using bergamot, and then they would call the head of the bergamot consortium, who told them I was crazy,” he said.
Health Benefits
Shortly after, the first scientific studies were undertaken in Italy, demonstrating that bergamot juice lowers blood pressure and cholesterol, and the most recent ones showing potential for managing diabetes.
The discovery of the juice’s health benefits has attracted new producers to the market, such as Fabio Trunfio, 50, who operates the Patea Bergamot Agricultural Company, a 20-minute drive from the Pizzi Groves.
Trunfio entered the bergamot oil market in 2007, expanding its production to include juice and fruit sales in 2010.
Frustrated by what he says is the failure of the Pizzi’s Bergamot Consortium to vigorously promote the juice, he and other producers have launched a bid to have their own distinct European designation: Protected Geographical Indication (PGI).
Like the DOP, the IGP focuses on the regional reputation of the product, but offers more flexibility to guarantee its authenticity.
Trunfio and his group are also applying for IGP certification.
“Once we obtain our PGI, we can do everything we can to publicize the amazing qualities of Calabrian bergamot juice,” said Trunfio, “and finally obtain a government certificate attesting to the cholesterol-lowering properties of bergamot juice.” .
DOP consortium head Ezio Pizzi, however, disputes Trunfio and others’ plan for a PGI – striving to retain control of the product through the more exclusive DOP, which he says it deserves. He complains that new producers in the region are flooding the market, driving down prices even further – already hit when duty-free perfume sales stagnated during the pandemic.
As Calabrian bergamot producers fight for control of their brand, the larger issue of climate change looms. Across Italy, concerns are growing about the vulnerability of monoculture, evident in everything from vineyards to olive groves.
But extreme summer temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns have hit citrus growers in southern Italy particularly hard. Last summer, intense heat and drought in Sicily turned oranges and lemons into hard, shriveled nuts, with yields down by up to 40 percent.
For now, Calabria’s aquifers are enough to compensate for the lack of precipitation, with only a tiny part of the fruit suffering from the heat. But producers warn that could change.
“We usually stop irrigating in September,” Pizzi said. “This year it barely rained a drop and for the first time I can remember we are still watering in December.”
He says he is currently in talks with regional politicians about creating desalination plants or using gray water from sinks, showers or washing machines for irrigation.
But unless action is taken quickly, Calabria risks seeing its hard-earned treasure slip away once again.
