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How We Brought Authentic Mediterranean Extra Virgin Olive Oil to North Carolina – and Won a Few Awards on the Way!
A couple years ago, a fun family trip ended up becoming a memorable event in our life when we, so enraptured by the beauty of the Spanish Olive Groves in the rolling hills, bought our very own small olive grove. Our plot of land in Sorbas in the Almeria Region had nine hundred matured Spanish Arbequina and Hojiblanca trees. Our land is classified as Organic and we have regular inspections for the renewal of our EU Organic Farm Certificate every year.
Since we are an EU certified organic grove, we don’t use insecticides, pesticides, or herbicides at all. We believe in the natural healing wonders of the Sun, which is abundantly available to use 320 days of the year, and the wonderful caressing winds that blow through our grove. If you are looking for further motivation to buy our oil, you will be delighted to know that if you do, you will be consuming oil from land Clint Eastwood once walked upon. In fact, the beautiful desert hills of Tabernas (not very far from our farm) are the location Mr. Eastwood chose to film his famous movie, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. As far as we know, the sets of the movie are still intact and remain a major tourist attraction in this area of the Almeria Region.
Due to the drying out of the ground aquifers of the Almeria area, we proactively chose to adapt to different ways of farming. Glenn French, the lucky man that gets to worship the beauty of the farm every day, is the sole reason we ventured into Permaculture farming. Now as responsible farmers, we practice permaculture and harvest rainwater using huge swales dug at hundred meter intervals all across our farm. This process helps the running water collect and sink into the earth, and increase the water table instead of running off. We endeavor to make our farm self-sustainable so we have planted nitrogen fixing trees such as Robena, Paulina, and Acacias across our farm. These trees fix the nitrogen in the soil and enrich the trees with the mineral materia. We have planted aromatic lavender as companion plants for the Olive Trees. During the fall, barley, our cover crop, work with the olive trees by fixing the nitrogen in the soil. As for manure, we don’t settle for anything less than horse and pig manure.
Awards / Recognitions / Certifications
EU Certified
Our passion is to produce the pure bounty of mother nature by practicing permaculture and establishing an ecological, sustainable habitat for our olive trees to grow happily. Our labor produces exceptional, quality, and EU certified Extra Virgin Olive Oil that seldom goes beyond 0.2% acidity. We use a state-of the-art award winning Cold Press mill and bring our oil un-blended straight to our customers, just like it is meant to be. Taste it to believe it. Once you do, you’ll keep coming back!
NYIOOC
We are multi year recipient of awards at the New York International Olive Oil Competition. NYIOOC is a prestigious award. For the year 2020, 900 Olive Oil entries were made from 26 countries. A tough competition and we made it to the Gold. A very big Thank You to NYIOOC for organizing this competition and recognize celebrated oils all over the World. Check us out at www.bestoliveoils.com/brands/ninas-olivar
