All the Flavour

Everything about Fuerteventura and its climate is intense and extreme. From the year-round sun, persistent maritime winds to the scant rainfall and salty soils. Olive trees need to be tough and resilient to grow and fruit here. We believe that these harsh conditions only intensify the flavours of the oil within the olive fruits.

Our oil is a careful blend of three varieties. Each variety of olive will produce an oil with distinct sensory characteristics.

Arbequina oil tends to be a sweet and smooth oil with aromas of fruit such as apple or banana. It has no bitter, peppery or spicy notes. Hojiblanca is a beautifully rounded oil with a balance of sweet and fruity notes with a soft peppery finish. Picual has a robust flavour with a degree of bitterness and zest.

The resulting blend has a beautiful fresh and grassy aroma with apple undertones and a warm and fruity flavour with a peppery and spicy finish.

Uncompromised Quality

Harvesting and processing can be a challenge because it takes place at the hottest time of the year. It is essential to maintain the olives at a maximum of 27°C during processing and extraction of the oil. Higher temperatures may yield more oil but at a reduced quality.

A team, comprising of family and friends, start picking the olives very early in the morning at first light when they are at their coolest. The fruits are either handpicked or removed using small rakes into collecting nets laid under the tree. From there they are transferred into crates and taken directly to the processing room.

Olives are picked at a specific stage of ripeness to achieve an optimum balance of flavours. Green olives tend to give a fresh grassy flavour with an intense peppering while ripe fruits produce oil with a smoother fruitier note. We pick when approximately 1/3 are green, 1/3 are changing colour and 1/3 are black whilst not being overly ripe.

We aim to process around 400kg of olives each day, starting at around 6am and finishing at midday before the rising temperatures making picking intolerable or the processing temperature gets too high.

The olives go through a process of cleaning, crushing, separation and filtration of the oil which is then stored in airtight stainless steel vats until bottling. It takes about 8kg of olives to make 1 litre of oil.

A sample of each batch is sent to an authorised laboratory where it is analysed for various parameters, including a taste test to determine whether it can be legally sold as extra virgin olive oil. Our attention to detail, from tree to bottle, has ensured that we have comfortably met these standards.

Embracing Nature

Our family home is situated at the heart of our olive grove. We want ourselves and our many pets to live in an environment that is as healthy and natural as possible.

We planted the olive trees relatively densely, which means that they shelter each other from the strong and often hot winds that arrive here in the summer, and the canopy of leaves shades the soil and cools the air.

We work under the principles of permaculture. Watering is through a drip irrigation system and a mulch of our own homemade compost reduces evaporation and provides natural nutrients for the trees. We also use a liquid extract from the composting process to feed the trees. All tree pruning’s, palm leaves and the left-over pulp from the olive milling are turned into a dark nutrient-rich compost which is incredibly valuable to improve the naturally dry mineral soil.

The finca is incredibly green and has abundant wildlife. Our water storage tank is home to dragonfly larvae and water boatmen, whilst migrating house martins, swifts and swallows pause on their journey and feed over the finca. A thriving population of hedgehogs feast on insects living in the mulch around the olive trees.

With the correct irrigation and feeding olive trees are naturally healthy and resistant to pests. When occasionally they do appear, we tolerate a small amount of damage and wait a week or two for a predatory bug to arrive and resolve the problem without further intervention. Every now and then, we might use our home-grown and home-produced Neem (Azadirachta indica) leaf extract as a completely natural insect repellent on individual trees as required.

Each June we use organically certified Kaolin (china clay) to coat the trees with a silvery white film. This effectively makes the trees invisible and unattractive to the olive fly (Bactrocera oleae), the larvae of which will otherwise ruin many fruits. It is 100% natural safe and effective. Last harvest we found absolutely no infected fruits.