We met our olive oil producers, Ioanna and Vasilis, at an expo. From the moment we were introduced, it was clear how closely their lives were tied to the land, and how deeply they cared for their grove.
We’ve always wanted to know the people we choose to work with, and to meet the land our products come from. So not long after, we drove down to Messinia to visit them.
Their grove sits far from the noise of the city. A small family estate of around a thousand trees planted fifty years ago by Vasilis’s father and grandfather. Vasilis is the third generation to cultivate them. He learned the grove beside his grandfather, one season at a time, until the knowledge became his own.
He is among the trees most days of the year, farming the way his family always has and refusing to cut corners. The care is obvious the moment you walk through the grove with him.
"We are strictly organic. We do everything it requires. We’re so strict that not even a small piece of plastic is allowed in the grove."
For Vasilis, organic farming is not simply a certification or a set of rules to follow. It is a way of working with the land, with as little interference as possible. The grove is treated almost as its own small ecosystem, where the soil, the surrounding vegetation, the insects, the weather, and the trees are all connected. This means paying close attention to what happens in the field throughout the year.
Walking through the grove, you begin to understand the environment these olives grow in. Vasilis is adamant that the microclimate plays a crucial role in the quality, aroma, and flavor of the olive oil. Pines grow right up to the hillside where the grove sits. Aromatic flowers and wild herbs cover the rocky ground between the trees. Air moves in from the sea and climbs inland over the slopes.
The altitude, the sun, the slope of the land, and everything growing around the trees come together to create the conditions in which the Koroneiki lives.
The land, Vasilis explains, has to face the sun and it has to drain well. The sun has to reach it, and it needs to be on a slope so the water runs off and the soil doesn’t hold moisture.
“If the tree lives in the right environment, it’ll give you aromas, it’ll give you everything. If the fruit grows the way it should, all of that comes out.”
The Koroneiki olives are harvested early, in October, while the fruit is still green.
Earlyharvesting helps preserve their vivid aromas, fresh green character and naturally occurring polyphenols, the antioxidant compounds that are associated with many of extra virgin olive oil’s health benefits, including protection against oxidative stress. It also gives the oil its characteristic bitterness and peppery finish.
“It is our own choice,” Ioanna told us. “We know it gives us less oil. What we get instead is more aroma and a far higher concentration of polyphenols.”
The olives leave for the mill in 30-litre ventilated containers as soon as they are picked. The oil is extracted at a controlled low temperature so that nothing is lost to heat. What comes out is vivid and deeply fragrant: tomato leaves, fresh green fruit and an artichoke note at first, a measured bitterness across the tongue, and a pepperiness that arrives late and lingers at the back of the throat.
The same care continues once the oil leaves the mill. We bottle it in dark green glass and keep it in a cool, dark room, protected from light and heat, until it reaches the kitchen it was made for.
A year of work in the grove comes down to a harvest of just a few weeks.
We treat it carefully because they do.
The rest of the story happens at your table.
