San Gimignano: Italian Saffron is born in the shadow of the Towers

Its colour is yellow like certain torrid afternoons in the Tuscan summer. Its unmistakable aroma is strong and pungent. Its versatility is extraordinary.As well as in Mediterranean cuisine, it is also used as an effective antioxidant (it contains a high percentage of vitamins B1 and B2), as a colorant (so much so that it is used widely in painting by the Sienese masters), as a condiment, as a herb and even as a perfume.This is saffron, also called crocus sativus for those who are into botany.

An ancient spice with oriental origins that is extracted from a violet bulbous flower and cultivated since antiquity in the shadow of the towers of San Gimignano. Indeed, if San Gimignano is now as it seems to us to be, it owes this partly to the sublime quality of its saffron. In medieval times it had considerable importance for the town’s economy. It was a highly expensive product due to its many uses so much so that in 1228 the Council had to pay its contractual debts for the siege of the Castello della Nera and it paid partly in cash and partly in saffron. In 1276 it set up entry and exit taxes, finding a conspicuous income in the export duties. In 1295 it also assigned two employees to weigh the saffron with a fixed presence at the town’s gates where the tax was obtained. So the saying that many of San Gimignano’s towers were erected with saffron money isn’t purely an urban myth!

Well, it’s true. San Gimignano’s saffron is indeed 1st category extremely pure saffron as established by the discipline and it is now recognised as the best of the national production. It is still grown with natural methods and the processing is all done manually – from the planting of the bulbs to the gathering of the flowers – and the threads are packaged whole to ensure the very pure quality and the unmistakable aroma.

It now identifies with a brand and its quality, as well as being handed down by posters, it is disproved by the repeated chemical and
organoleptic analysis to which the product is subjected in order to be able to rise so high up in the scale of values and bestow itself with the DOP (Designation of Protected Origin) that therefore imposes production only within the municipality’s area. We now talk a lot about saffron. It comes up all over Italy, but as well as being the forefather of all the others, the saffron of San Gimignano is at the top in terms of quality.

(Portions of this article first appeared in "Toscana & Chianti News")
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