A village tale worth more than any marketing campaign
In Montegiovi, right in front of the crossroads that leads to Poderi Borselli, there is a bench — one of those light-green iron ones where, in summer, the village elders sit in the evening to chat.
How many stories that bench must have heard! One of them concerns us closely.
It was November a few years ago, harvest and pressing time throughout the valley.
The days, though no longer very long, still offered a sun that — if not warm — was at least mild, and in the early afternoon hours it was still ideal even for the lizards on the walls.
That day, the bench was occupied by its usual occupants, who naturally could not help talking about how that year the olives were yielding little, about the olive fly that “had done its damage“, and about how “the oil just isn’t what it used to be!“.
That day, those same occupants, watching the steady stream of traffic heading towards Poderi Borselli, wondered: “I wonder how Borselli’s oil will turn out this year. It would be something to find out in advance!”
As everyone knows, in small villages, on calm days like that, anything can spark the imagination. And we all know that in Tuscany we are rather creative.
Just at that moment, Grullo (so nicknamed, and for good reason) happened to walk by — and you can imagine that the old-timers were not going to let such an opportunity slip. With just a few words they persuaded him to walk up to Poderi Borselli and try to sneak a taste of the freshly pressed oil.
The idea hadn’t come to them out of nowhere — they were imagining Davide’s reaction.
On arrival, our Grullo, slipping from crate to crate, managed to get inside the mill and, ever so quietly, cupped his hand, dipped it into a container full of oil, lifted it up dripping and drank.
At the last sip a shout made him jump out of his skin and the last drops of oil splattered to the floor: Davide had caught him.
In that moment Grullo revealed his talents as a middle-distance runner: in just a few minutes he covered the distance between Poderi Borselli and Montegiovi, sprinting between the olive trees and the vines, all the way back to the village.
On the verge of a respiratory crisis, arriving right in front of the bench and its occupants, and in response to the amused question from those who had commissioned him — “Well then?” — the runner answered, catching his breath between words: “Èstra…Èstra…Èstra..” until he collapsed to the ground, exhausted.