From the Producer

Nostroliva means “our olive” and our olive has various characteristics as a beauty that we have “owned” which I believe deserves this embrace of ours. Having been present at every step of the production, I wanted to share all of these with you.

We broke the stones of rocky soil and then let the rain and wind give the trees the necessary minerals in a natural way. There was no irrigation other than rain water. We have an olive grove consisting of a combination of trees grafted from wild olive trees (uslu) and other regional types such as Edremit, Trilye, and Domat. I was very lucky to have them. For this reason our olive oil has a very different and unique taste and aroma.

Olive is a fruit. When a fruit is ripe, it is both delicious and nutrituous, and has to be eaten at that right time. We do not pick and eat any other fruit before it is ripe. Recently “early harvest”- when both the olive and the oil is stil bitter-has become commercially popular for olive oil. However, olives must be harvested when all the useful substances and minerals are at their peak, and pressed the same day in order for them to be passed into the oil. I call this “harvest just at the right time”. So when is that “right time”? After the third frost fall. The olive fruit increases the secretion of its useful substances with the frost. If a period of 5-10 days pass following the third frost fall, the flavour and aroma start to change.

During the picking process we only used the olives that fell onto the cloth beneath the tree and discarded those that fell on the ground. We must risk a certain amount of loss because getting into contact with the soil increases the acid in the fruit which leads to a flavour like crushed fruit.

There are two reasons why all the useful polyphenols in the olive oil go to waste. One is heat and the other is filtration. While heat increases the yield, with filtration you get transparent olive oil. The first is for commercial, the second is for cosmetic reasons, however, they are both the archenemy of olive oil. First I would like to explain why heat is bad. When we talk about “cold press olive oil”, we mean that the maximum temperature must be 27 degrees centigrade. A chemical reaction begins when the temperature goes above this degree and the useful substances disappear. Therefore, during the process of “cold press” you have to watch carefully and prevent the temperature from rising by cooling the exterior of the machine with cold water if necessary. The cooler the environment, the lesser the amount of olive oil, hence the quality of “Nostroliva”.

As for the second enemy of polyphenols; even if you have done everything by the book, if you use an industrial filter to get a transparent gold colour olive oil, you leave all the useful substances at micron level in the filter. Thus you eliminate those substances which are anticarcinogenic, antioxidant, and which are necessary for the immune system. To prevent this loss, we do not filter our oil but keep it in special, airtight, stainless steel tanks for up to 4-6 weeks at a temperature of 20 degrees centigrade in order to enable natural precipitation.

When it is time to bottle our olive oil, we use dark tinted glass bottles, and practical bottle caps for easy use.

There is also a competition for “low acid” in the market. The level of acid is important of course, but when asked Italians, who are experts in the olive oil business, they say that before the level of acid come “aroma, flavour, processing and storage”. This is a culture like that of wine and coffee… For these reasons, “Nostroliva” is a rare source of healing of high quality albeit a high cost of production. It is my wish that “Nostroliva” be consumed in peace and with pleasure.

Best regards,