Real Olive Oil
It’s well documented that as much as 90% of the olive oil sold in the US is adulterated and/or mislabeled. While commercial olive oil is inexpensive, US consumers miss out on great flavor and the best health benefits that real extra virgin olive oil offers.
Our Guarantee: 100% Real Extra Virgin Olive Oil
We 100% guarantee the source of our oils. We know where they’re from, who makes them and where they’re bottled. We don’t work with producers that buy olive oil or with brokers; we buy directly from the producer. Here’s a list of a few qualifications we look to when selecting our olive oils.
Estate olives – Our producer’s olive oils are from estate olives they grow. When our producers do purchase olives they work with growers that have the same high quality standards. We work with a few very high quality COOPs. They work with a community of farmers and they adhere to a high quality level of olive production.
Estate bottled– 100% of our oils are bottled at the estate by the producer of the oil.
Harvesting – Olives are harvested early when they are green. Only green olives have the concentration of flavor, polyphenols, freshness and other elements that make real olive oil really good. However, green olives have small amounts of oil in them, yields are low and it’s expensive to produce. On average 100kg of green olives yield 10kg of olive oil. Most olives are hand harvested. Some of our producers have added “soft” mechanical assistance to olive harvesting but the trees still must be finished by hand.
Milling– The olives are milled on site, at the estate. This is the only way the producer can control the quality of the process. Olives are milled the same day they are harvested, avoiding oxidation and keeping free acidity very low.
Color - The brilliant green/gold color of fresh, real extra virgin olive oil is beautiful and one of its most alluring qualities. However, "green color" is one of the easiest and most common "corrections" made to low quality olive oil with the addition of chlorophyll. Don't use color alone to evaluate the quality or freshness of an olive oil. Real extra virgin olive oil should taste fresh, never greasy, and most importantly should have a firm and persistent pungency or bitter note. Bitterness is a result of high levels of polyphenols, which is the source of great flavor and all the antioxidants that provide other health benefits.
If you would like to learn more on this topic we recommend the book “Extra Virginity” by Thomas Muller. It’s a fascinating book that takes on “big oil”, the corrupt practices that go on world-wide and he identifies what truly great olive oil is really about.