Harvesting
Our farmers harvest only by hand. Nothing else. No Machines. Preventing the olives from touching the ground at all times.
Olive Oil Process
Every Single detail counts.
Our farmers do for our Dear Olives ™ what they would do for their kids. Grow and protect them. After identifying the right time to harvest every cultivar, they must make sure to protect the fruits, so they offer us their very best.
-
Harvesting
-
Transporting
-
Cleaning
-
Grinding
-
Malaxing
-
Extracting
-
Natural Filtering
-
Bottling
Transporting
Olives are carefully put on sacks, in small quantities, so they don’t crush each other, and transported to the mill 1 to 6 hours after harvested, in order to keep their freshness and protect them from their first enemy: fermentation.
Cleaning
Once they reach the mill, the olives are cleaned with pure, pristine water, to eliminate leaves, dirt, stones and any other impurities before they enter the second part of the process: the grinding stage.
Grinding
Even when we grind our olives, we do it with care. So for the paste preparation (a critical step in the process), we keep the temperature below 25 degrees Celsius to bring out the flavours and aromas of the juice, adapting the crushing machines to the particular conditions of each harvest and cultivar. This is ideal for single origin varieties and for small quantity production principles.
Malaxing
We use vertical malaxers, not very common in the olive oil industry, and work with small batches. This innovative system guarantees faster production while protecting our Dear Olives ™ from their second biggest enemy: Oxidation. We slowly churn milled olives to allow the smaller droplets of oil released by the milling process to aggregate. It all takes place under controlled atmospheric pressure and temperature specific per variety (cold pressing) which is necessary for maintaining the highest quality of olive oil. This allows the enzymes in the olives to liberate aromas and flavours.
Extracting
Two-phase decanters are used to separate the oil from the olive paste at low temperatures in an efficient and clean manner, removing water and any solid component. WE DON’T USE ADDED WATER. Water can help extract more oil but will alter the quality. We aim for quality, And we care for the natural resources as well!
Natural Filtering
The juice goes into decanting containers for natural filtration, leveraging gravity, and continuous manual moisture removal through a dedicated tap. It takes 5 days to remove completely the moisture and any additional organic matter in suspension. This needs extensive care and follow up. But this is how we can keep all the benefits of our juice and its ultra premium quality.
Bottling
Right after filtering, we put our Ultra Premium juice in nitrogen-controlled tanks, to protect them from any oxidation. After doing the right laboratory analysis, to confirm the desired quality, we start right away our bottling. Every bottle is then kept at a constant temperature between 15 and 18°C and protected from the light, keeping the oil properties intact.
