The beloved Italian poet Gabriele D'Annunzio is credited with describing the view from the Reggio Calabria promenade, where the Mediterranean and Ionian Seas meet, as “the most beautiful kilometer in Italy.”
But beyond the stunning views, the mixing of the seas and the unique microclimate created by the narrowing Apennine mountain range offer idyllic conditions for bergamot citrus.
Cultivated almost exclusively for centuries on a 90-kilometer strip of the Ionian coast, at the tip of the Italian boot, the fruit's essential oil is a valued ingredient in perfumes, luxury cosmetics, and even Earle Gray tea, sought after for its complex, citrus scent. fragrance note in perfumes and the ability to fix 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 Protected Designation of Origin (DOP) status for this essential oil.
“To think that this plant was brought from Sicily and planted here, 15 kilometers away, in this amazing microclimate that gave it amazing properties.”
Over time, Calabrians discovered the many benefits of the oil extracted from the peel of fruit harvested while still green – from repelling mosquitoes and flies to acting as a strong disinfectant and improving the durability and spread of the scent.
However, in the late 1960s, the invention of synthetic oil caused the value of natural bergamot to plummet, forcing landowners to cut down the trees. Bergamot cultivation in the region was discontinued for almost 25 years.
Then, in the early 1990s, the rise of organic products sparked renewed interest, especially from French perfumeries. Pizzi, a member of one of the few land-owning families that did not destroy their orchards, gathered a group of producers and resumed essential oil production, forming a consortium.
“We managed to double the price from 18 cents a liter to 36 in the first year,” he said. “Now we even pay euros per liter.”
Currently, Pizzi says, the DOP area in Calabria produces 80 percent of the world's bergamot.
However, just over ten years ago, the fruit pulp was discarded – it was mainly fed to animals.
A precious juice, once demonized
“I grew up and my mother told me that if I ate bergamot, my arms would fall off,” said Vittorio Caminiti, a local historian and founder of the small, cozy National Bergamot Museum, located up a flight of stairs on 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, thus ensuring that the bergamot harvest remained solely their responsibility to extract the oil. Before industrialization He says it took 400 bergamots to produce just one liter of oil.
“If someone died? He ate bergamot. If a woman had a miscarriage? She ate bergamot. Bergamot was prescribed for any ailment,” 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 the juice until he finally realized he had to wait for the bergamot to ripen and turn orange before he could eat and drink it. He took part in a competition for a cake made from bergamot juice and won the main prize.
Food media in Italy picked up on the story, expressing outrage or disbelief.
“I would give them recipes for bergamot, and then they would call the head of the bergamot consortium, who would tell them I was crazy,” he said.
Health benefits
Shortly thereafter, the first scientific studies were carried out in Italy, showing that bergamot juice lowers blood pressure and cholesterol, and later, showing potential in the treatment of diabetes.
The discovery of the juice's health benefits has attracted new producers to the market, such as 50-year-old Fabio Trunfio, who runs the farming company Patea Bergamot – a 20-minute drive from the Pizzi groves.
Trunfio entered the bergamot oil market in 2007, expanding production to include juices and fruit sales in 2010.
Frustrated by the failure of the Bergamot Pizzi consortium to vigorously promote the juice, he and other producers applied for its own, separate EU name: Protected Geographical Indication (IGP).
Like DOP, IGP focuses on a product's regional reputation but offers greater flexibility in ensuring authenticity.
Trunfio and his group are also petitioning for IGP certification.
“Once we receive the IGP, we will be able to fully promote the amazing properties of Calabrian bergamot juice,” Trunfio said, “and finally obtain government certification for the cholesterol-lowering properties of bergamot juice.”
DOP consortium head Ezio Pizzi, however, questions Trunfio et al.'s plan for IGP, seeking to retain control of the product through a more exclusive DOP, which he believes it deserves. He complains that new growers in the area are flooding the market, pushing prices – which have already peaked after duty-free perfume sales halted during the pandemic – further down.
As bergamot producers in Calabria fight for control of their brand, the larger issue of climate change emerges. Concerns are growing across Italy about the sensitivity of monoculture farming, evident in everything from vineyards to olive groves.
However, extreme summer temperatures and changes in rainfall 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, and yields dropped by as much as 40%.
For now, the aquifers in Calabria are sufficient to compensate for the lack of rainfall, and only a small proportion of the fruit suffers from the heat. However, producers warn that this may change.
“We usually stop irrigating in September,” Pizzi said. “There hasn't been a drop of rain this year, and for the first time I can remember, we're still watering in December.”
He says he is currently in talks with regional politicians about building desalination plants or using gray water from sinks, showers and washing machines for irrigation.
However, if action is not taken soon, Calabria risks seeing its hard-won prize spiral out of control once again.