OUR STORY

Have you ever had one of those great ideas that turned out completely differently than imagined?  We did.

 

As a result of long and demanding professional careers in

Los Angeles, our life there was fast losing its luster. The traffic, the stressed people, the long lines, and the crush of humanity had taken its toll on us.  We decided to create an escape plan.  After years of searching, we purchased a home and acreage near San Miguel, California.

 

We knew very little about farming. We did know that when we sat in our living room, our view was of the metal siding of our barn. Not very scenic.  We decided to plant a few olive trees and create a Mediterranean courtyard to obscure the barn.  It worked, but the olive trees grew so large and fast that the courtyard was short-lived.  The trees produced more olives than we could brine.  We then decided to mill the olives for “a little personal oil.”

 

In the meantime, we researched growing olives, we planted more trees, and studied the production of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO).  Our goal was, and always will be, to produce great olive oil.  We encountered challenges, stumbling blocks and setbacks, but we remained focused on our goal.  While we are a small artisanal producer, our success is evidenced by the many awards won by our EVOO.

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We often heard a question from our customers that concerned us, “How do we use it?”  So, we looked for sources of recipes and couldn’t find many.  That was our light bulb moment and we decided that we would be different from other producers.  We were going to help our customers integrate EVOO into their daily lives by providing meal inspiration ideas, recipes and conversion of well-loved family recipes to incorporate olive oil.  We also started posting social media posts on using EVOO.  In short, this became our mission.

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We don’t offer tours.  We don’t host events.  We don’t have a restaurant or sell at farmer’s markets.  What we offer is day-to-day meal inspiration, a dynamic, ever-changing recipe page on our website, newsletters providing recipes for seasonal dishes and active social media pages, combined with our personal standards of excellence in producing world-class extra-virgin olive oil.  We also offer extraordinary gourmet vinegars, seasonings and spices, and olive oil gift sets.

 

And no, you can’t see the barn any longer, so that goal, too, was achieved.  Win-win.  Try our artisanal EVOO and experience the olive oil that is setting the gold standard in California.