Quercia Verde

Produced in the depths of the Tuscan landscape, the Quercia Verde estate harvests the finest olives to create their premium extra virgin olive oil. Quercia Verde sits under the walls of Cortona, a charming Etruscan hill town where the steep terraced hillsides have been producing olive oil for centuries. Shropshire family Rhoddy and Georgina Swire have dedicated 15 years of restoration to bring this abandoned olive grove back to its former glory.

Quercia Verde sits under the walls of Cortona, a beautiful Etruscan hill town on the borders of Tuscany and Umbria. A river runs through the terraces from the monastery where St Francis of Assisi lived for 3 years of his life and is said to be blessed. In 2005 the abandoned olive groves around Quercia Verde were cleared, although important oaks and fruit trees were left; the old trees (approximately 250) had to be pruned. The olives are usually picked in late October by hand, before damage by autumn wind and rain, weather permitting. Each of the four groves is picked in turn with the olives taken within 24 hours to the cold press mill nearby. A minimum of 20 cases of olives is required by the mill to ensure that only our olives are included in a pressing. The old system is used with a large stone wheel crushing the olives, followed by an hour of churning and then loading a plate with a layer of the mash and then another plate to up to a stack of 12 plates. This is then subjected to 400psi for nearly an hour resulting in the oil, which is then stored for 2 months to allow the sediment to settle before bottling. The trees are pruned in February and the groves are mowed to keep the grass down in July after the wild flowers have set seed. A little organic fertilizer is applied in March. In the summer on very dry days collected rain water is used to provide a light refreshment for the trees. The result is a completely uncontaminated, unfiltered, single estate olive oil!

2005