“Nature’s miracle”: the revival of fragile bergamot in southern Italy

Beloved Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio famously described the view from the promenade of Reggio Calabria, where the Mediterranean and Ionian Seas meet, as “the most beautiful kilometer in Italy.”

But besides its stunning vistas, the mingling of the seas and the unique microclimate created by the diminishing Apennine mountain range provide ideal conditions for the citrusy bergamot.

Grown almost exclusively for centuries along a 90-kilometre strip of the Ionian coast, the toe of Italy’s boot, the fruit’s essential oil has been a prized ingredient in luxury perfumes, cosmetics and even Earl Gray tea, sought after for its complex, citrusy top. A note in perfumes and their ability to hold scents 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 Origin (DOP) status for essential oils.

“I believe this plant was brought from Sicily and was grown here, 15 kilometers away, in this amazing microclimate that gave it amazing qualities.”

Over time, Calabrians discovered the many benefits of oil extracted from the peel of fruit picked while still green – from repelling mosquitoes and flies to acting as a powerful antiseptic and promoting longevity and diffusion of fragrance.

But in the late 1960s, the invention of synthetic oil caused the value of natural bergamot to decline, prompting landowners to cut down their trees. Nearly 25 years ago, bergamot cultivation in the region stopped.

Then, in the early 1990s, the rise of organic products sparked renewed interest, especially from French perfume companies. Pizzi, a member of one of the few landowning families whose orchards had not been destroyed, gathered a group of producers and relaunched essential oil production, forming a union.

“We were able to double the price from 18 cents per liter to 36 cents in the first year,” he said. “Now we bring up to a euro a litre.”

Today, Pizzi says, the DOP region of Calabria produces 80 percent of the world’s bergamot.

However, until just over a decade ago, the flesh of the fruit was cast aside and mostly fed to animals.

Devilish Precious Juice at once

“I grew up with my mother telling me that if I ate bergamot, my hand would fall off,” said Vittorio Caminiti, a local historian and founder of the small National Bergamot Museum., It is located up a flight of stairs off a side street in Reggio Calabria.

Wealthy landowners demonized the fruit’s juice, claiming it was toxic to prevent local peasants from consuming it, thus ensuring the bergamot harvest remained under their control solely to extract the oil, Creminiti says. Before manufacturing, He says it takes 400 bergamot seeds to make just one liter of oil.

He said: “If someone died? They would eat bergamot. If a woman had a miscarriage? She would eat bergamot. Bergamot was blamed for any illness.” “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, eventually realizing that he had to wait for the bergamot to ripen until it was orange to eat or drink. He entered a cake he made with bergamot juice in a competition and won first prize.

Italy’s culinary media picked up the story, expressing anger or disbelief.

“I would give them prescriptions for bergamot, and then they would call the president of the Bergamot Federation, who would tell them I was crazy,” he said.

Health benefits

Shortly after, the first scientific studies were conducted in Italy, showing that bergamot juice lowers blood pressure and lowers blood pressure cholesterol, Later it showed potential in managing diabetes.

The discovery of the juice’s health benefits has attracted new producers to the market, such as Fabio Trunfio, 50, who runs the agricultural company Batia Bergamot – a 20-minute drive from Pizzi Orchards.

Trunfio entered the bergamot oil market in 2007, and expanded production to include juice and fruit sales in 2010.

Frustrated by what he says is the failure of Pizzi’s Bergamot consortium to actively promote the juice, he and other producers have launched a bid for their own separate designation in the EU: Protected Geographical Indication (IGP).

Like DOP, IGP focuses on the regional reputation of the product, but offers more flexibility in ensuring authenticity.

Trunfio and his group are also petitioning for IGP certification.

“Once we obtain the IGP, we will be able to do our best to promote the amazing qualities of Calabrian bergamot juice, and finally obtain a government certificate attesting to the cholesterol-lowering properties of bergamot juice,” Trunfio said.

However, DOP consortium president Ezio Pizzi opposes the plan by Trunfio and others to create an IGP – and is striving to retain control of the product through the more exclusive DOP, which he says it deserves. He complains that new growers in the area are flooding the market, driving down prices — which had already reached when duty-free perfume sales came to a halt during the pandemic.

As Calabrian bergamot producers vie for control of their brand, a larger issue of climate change looms. Across Italy, concerns are growing about the weakness 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 hard. Last summer, extreme heat and drought in Sicily turned oranges and lemons into hard, shriveled nuts, reducing production by up to 40 percent.

Currently, Calabria’s aquifers are sufficient to compensate for the lack of rainfall, with only a small part of the fruit suffering from the heat. But producers warn that may change.

“We usually stop watering in September,” Pizzi said. “This year, it hardly rained a drop, and for the first time I can ever remember, we were still watering in December.”

He says he is now in talks with regional politicians about setting up desalination plants or using gray water from sinks, bathrooms or washing machines for irrigation.

But unless action is taken soon, Calabria risks seeing its hard-earned bounty squandered once again.