Classic Extra Virgin Oilve Oil

The fresh and grassy perfume of CLASSIC Extra Virgin Olive Oil makes it perfect to be used as basic ingredient of the Mediterranean cuisine; thanks to its long-lasting fragrance and its distinctive delicate taste, this oil is suitable for everyday cooking.

CLASSIC Extra Virgin Olive Oil is recognizable by its grassy perfume and its well-balanced taste. It presents a grassy aroma of medium intensity; on the palate it reveals a harmonious and well-balanced flavour.

In addition to its sensory features, extra virgin olive oil stands out also from a nutritional point of view. The presence of antioxidants, the so-called biophenols, makes olive oil an essential product, not only for its taste but also for our health.

For over 100 years the Santagata company has been selecting and trading fine olive and extra virgin oils with the “Santagata” and “Frantoio di Portofino” trademarks. Since its establishment in 1907, the enterprise has been offering high quality olive oils, in accordance with the most restrictive European rules and respecting rigid quality and safety standards.

Through the study and the analysis of a wide variety of oils, year after year Santagata is able to balance and harmonize the flavour notes in every product, whether it is bottled or bulk, and it preserves a high and unaltered quality level over time thanks to the analysis of the organoleptic properties of its oils.

Santagata purchases raw materials from certified suppliers, which are long-term partners operating on the local, national and European market. The company guarantees excellent quality and taste consistency in all its products thanks to specialized testings, to its technical expertise and to professional tastings. All the company management is a qualified ONAOO taster.

Technical expertise is demonstrated by the deep understanding of the target market, in other words of the agricultural sector of production (the growing seasons, the harvests influenced by metereologic and systemic factors), of customers’needs (flavour, quality and service) and of the economic system of oil (financial trends, market fluctuations).

For the most demanding oil experts, Santagata means “high level and inimitable quality”.

The company directly verifies the reliability of its suppliers by permanently performing audit checks. Furthermore, it applies the necessary protections to safeguard the company itself and to offer its customers a healthy and genuine product that complies with the most restrictive European standards concerning extra virgin and vegetable oils. Raw materials are purchased only from the certified suppliers that hold a long-term business relationship with Santagata. In order to be approved by the company, each and every lot of oil is first tested by the internal Panel for a sensory analysis. Furthermore a certain amount of oil is sent to the laboratory of the Consortium the Santagata company is part of for further tests, and only when the resulting chemical and physical parameters meet the required standards the oil is finally unloaded from the tanker truck.

For each oil sample tested, there are tens of chemical and physical parameters that are taken into account and analysed, and they fall into two main categories, the quality and the purity parameters. The meticulous research that is carried out aims at revealing potential frauds or sophistications of the product that could not be revealed only through tasting.

質量参数
Parameters of quality

The parameters that fall into this category are: acidity level, hydrogen peroxide number and UV spectrophotometric constant. They collectively reveal the level of hydrolytic and oxidizing alteration, both primary and secondary, of oil. These values are used to understand the goodness of the raw material, its authenticity and indirectly the “freshness” of the oil.

Parameters of purity

The analysis of both the glyceridic fraction and of some components of the unsaponifiable fraction indicators (such as sterols, aliphatic and triterpenic alcohols, waxes) enables to verify that the analysed product perfectly reflects the concerned vegetable oil spectrum; it also enables to prove that the analysed oil has not been sophisticated with oils of lesser value.

Selection of the finest oils

When the olive pressing phase approaches, it is time to select the right suppliers. The company staff, which is made up of trained and qualified tasters, visit the mills to select high quality raw materials or, as an alternative, the staff takes part to the company internal panel in order to test the extra virgin oil samples that are shipped daily by trusted brokers. It is a hard work, since it is not simply about selecting the oils with the most promising sensory features, but it also implies to search for the oils that once mixed together – blending – will make up the unique bouquet, which characterises all the Santagata product lines.

Product transportation

The selection of raw materials is nothing but the starting point of the quality chain. As a matter of fact, oil is as precious as delicate, and once the finest oil is selected it is necessary to pay just the same attention to the rest of the oil production chain.

For this reason, Santagata relies on specialised and trusted transporters carrying the oil within thermostated tanker trucks to avoid temperature changes; furthermore, these vehicles are featured by compartments designed to limit excessive aeration that could cause oxidation of the oil.

The business was started in Camogli – the maritime hamlet near Genoa – in 1907 by Giovanni Battista Santagata, the founder of the enterprise who specialised in the selection and trading of the finest virgin and extra virgin oils. Since then 100 years have passed, and during this period of time the five generations that followed have managed the company with the same passion, dedication and professionalism.

Luigi, the son of Giovanni Battista, has widened the business frontiers in Italy. Subsequently, Mario and Massimo Santagata, the grandson and the great grandson respectively, have opened up the company to international markets and they have moved the headquarters to Genoa city in Via Albisola, a location that better reflects the business size and the company turnover.

Today Federico and Cristina, the fifth generation of a long-established family tradition are supported by an experienced staff and they continue to provide their customers with first quality products by managing a well-established company with a strong local and national rooting and with growing international ramifications. In 2012 the company was included in the Historic Company Register.