“What are you going to do when you grow up? What I’m doing now. Being in the field every day of the year except when it rains.”

Riccardo is an agro-technician with a diploma as a land surveyor, a nursery technician specializing in olive growing.

An expert in food and wine marketing for the enhancement of the food and artistic heritage of the Lazio region, he has been international champion of olive pruning with polyconic vase and a professional extra virgin olive oil taster.

He discovered and mapped in collaboration with ARSIAL (Agenzia Regionale per lo Sviluppo e l’Innovazione dell’Agricoltura del Lazio) an old olive cultivar at risk of genetic erosion, the Ritornella (a typical olive variety of the Castelli Romani). 

As business consultant, he conducts in collaboration with the CREA (Council for Research in Agriculture and Analysis of Agricultural Economics) courses on pruning and management of olive tree pruning. Pruning in agronomy is a practice of fundamental importance, because it must respect the physiology of the plant as much as possible, reduce the time required to carry out caesarean interventions, prolong the economic life of the olive grove, and facilitate other operations such as harvesting according to one’s business needs.