A bottle of champagne (purchased in the next town over), a toast on the sparkling Ionian Sea, and too many festive meals to describe– That’s how Skyler Mapes and Giuseppe Morisani, a wife-and-husband olive oil team, have been celebrating since the news broke a few days ago.
“I've been watching Oprah since I was a little kid,” said Skyler from the family home in Calabria, Italy. “So, this is crazy for me and it's super surreal.”
Last week, Oprah released her holiday gift guide, featuring over 70 products created by black-owned businesses for her annual “Favorite Things” list. Skyler and Giuseppe’s olive oil company, EXAU, was among those honored.
Skylar Mapes and Giuseppe Morisani
Oprah selected two extra virgin olive oils named after Giuseppe’s parents, Turi and Lina. The matriarch of the family, Lina is known for her spunky character. The olive oil taste, Skyler and Giuseppe have said, resembles her fiery personality.
Writing from their seaside house in the small-town of Le Castella during the peak of olive oil harvest and a pandemic, Skyler and Giuseppe shared their joy and reflected on what this meant in the big scheme of things.
“I was joking with Giuseppe earlier this year, like, ‘Haha we're never going to get in,’ but we actually ended up getting on the list,” said Skyler.
According to Giuseppe, his parents were not as impacted by the news. “My parents don’t know who Oprah is and neither do the rest of the family [laughing emoji] it sounds crazy right?”
But for both of them, this moment felt like a turning point. (And not because their olive oil is so popular that it’s back-ordered!) For the first time, they sense a connection between the ancient practice of olive farming in Southern Italy and mainstream American culture.
“By getting into Oprah's Favorite Things, we've finally, truly bridged modern culture and practices with the old traditional Calabrian practices and old Italian practices of producing olive oil. I mean who would have thought that a tiny Calabrian brand would be in O Magazine? That's not something that I think many people predicted for the future of Calabrian olive oil, and it’s something really incredible to see. It goes to show that there’s a lot of really great producers in the region and in the south [of Italy] that are capable of doing really wonderful things.”
To learn more about Calabrian olive oil, family recipes and their love story, follow @exauoliveoil