Italian Culinary Tours

Would you like to travel in Italy and deepen your appreciation of its culinary delights?  Tour With Us creates itineraries focused on authentic Italian food made from fresh ingredients, and highlighting the diversity of local cuisines and the Slow Food Movement. Their tours offer hands-on cooking classes, cheese and chocolate making workshops, and include time for sightseeing, shopping, wine and olive oil tastings, and relaxation.

Stefano Landini, owner of Tour With Us and a friend of Apollo Olive Oil, grew up in Italy and has personal connections with the restaurant owners, cheesemakers, wine masters, and family farmers that you will meet along the way. He and his wife, Perla, will host you for your journey, taking care of the details so that you’re free to enjoy la dolce vita!

Travel light! Tour With Us offers a maximum tour size of 6 people, to allow flexibility and foster camaraderie.  Sign up for an existing tour or put together your own group of friends.  Bypassing crowded tourists’ destinations, you’ll discover Italy’s hidden gems, like in the picture below! Visit www.tour-withus.com for more detailed information.


Apollo Wins Gold in New York!

Our Mistral and Sierra both won gold medals in the New York International Olive Oil competition held at the end of April this year. Both oils won golds at all three of the major competitions this year. We typically do not enter our Gold Series oils into competitions because we make very small quantities therefore you will not see them with medal citations on our web site. However if you read our customer reviews on the Gold Series you will find that they are many people’s favorites.

Apollo Wins All Golds – Again!

We are very pleased to announce that the two flagship oils we always enter in competitions – the Sierra and the Mistral – both won gold medals at both the Los Angeles International Olive Oil Competition and at the California State Fair Olive Oil Competition. Soon, we’ll hear the results from the New York International Olive Oil Competition as well.

Our Gold Series mono-varietals also garnered highly respected praise in a small private tasting with Pier Paolo Arca, an internationally recognized olive oil expert and Panel Head for the Montiferru Olive Oil Competition in Sardinia Italy. He had come to California for the hard work of judging dozens of olive oils at the Los Angeles International Olive Oil Competition. After all that tasting, he remarked that our Aglandau stood out as among the finest he’d tasted here this year.

Each year at the end of the milling season, we taste every one of our 50-gallon barrels and select the best four barrels to be our limited release mono-varietal Gold Series oils. There’s not enough to enter in competitions, but you can know that they are the best of the best we produce. To learn more about these oils and to purchase visit www.apollooliveoil.com.

North Sierra Wine Trail

This spring’s annual North Sierra Wine Trail will be the weekend of April 22nd-23rd, from 12 to 5 pm. Experience 12 boutique wineries nestled in our little stretch of the Sierra foothills between Oroville and Dobbins. Taste small batch artisan wine making at its finest. Meet the real owners and wine makers for answers to all your questions. We’ll be there too, sampling our new oils and sharing our story! Visit www.northsierrawinetrail.com for more information, tickets, and trail maps.

Tip: We recommend checking out the lovely AirBnBs on the Oregon House/Dobbins end of the trail, for a restful mini-vacation out in the country.

Our New Oils Are Now Available

We are very pleased with how harmonious all our oils turned out this year. We were able to achieve high antioxidant levels while still maintaining a nice balance between pungency and fruitiness.

Our Mistral has a nice, light intensity, making it deliciously French in style. The Sierra has its usual lively intensity coming from the California mission variety.

Our Gold Series offerings are the same as last year: A Tunisian variety, Barouni, two French varieties, Aglandau and Grossane; and an Italian variety, Coratina. All these varieties do very well growing in the Mediterranean style climate of California.

We still have last year’s Sierra and Mistral on sale at $16.95. They are still tasting very fresh while having mellowed a little bit.

US News Ranks Popular Diets

US News Ranks Popular Diets

US News evaluated the 38 most popular diets with the help of diet and nutritional experts. They rated them in several different categories. The DASH diet ranked number one and the Meditteranean diet ranked number two overall. Both diets use extra virgin olive oil as their primary fat for cooking and adding to recipes. The Meditteranean diet ranked number one as the easiest to follow. The entire study is very interesting, you can read about it here.

The article includes nice recipes from the several different diets. It also ranks diets according to best commercial diets, best diets for diabetes,  and several other categories.

Simple Cooking Tips with Apollo Olive Oil

Cooking Tips From a Customer
A customer recently wrote us to say they added a cup of our Balsamic Condiment to the batter of a 150 year old cider cake recipe resulting in the cake having a new unique flavor. She said it was absolutely delicious.

Recent Customer Reviews
My favorite olive oil
We used to make our own olive oil in Tuscany. This oil may be French (Mistral) but it reminds me most closely of our oil there. It’s incredible for salads and on toast with fresh rosemary and goat cheese. It’s hard to find anything that even comes close. The biggest plus is knowing all the polyphenols are keeping me healthy and vibrant.
Christine Z.

Excellent ~ Always!
As a returning customer for a couple of years now, I know I can rely on Apollo to deliver the finest, freshest tasting olive oil. I have never been disappointed in the quality, and I especially appreciate their excellent packaging!
Mid S.

News Flash! Apollo Olive Oil makes national TV!!

The chic restaurant in the Beverly Hills Peninsula Hotel, the Belvedere, is the only AAA 5 diamond Restaurant in all of Southern California – and they’ve been using Apollo Olive Oil for years.

In Hallmark’s recent cooking segment, Chef David Codney prepares a simple seafood dish that’s popular at the restaurant, and finishes it with Apollo’s Sierra. Check it out at: http://www.hallmarkchannel.com/home-and-family/videos/potted-house-smoked-salmon-home-family

Best Wishes for a great New Year!

Holiday Special

With Apollo Olive Oil, you can send gifts by entering your good wishes in the message box during the checkout process and we will send your gift with a nicely printed card in our standard 100% recyclable packaging.

Now, in keeping with our Holiday tradition, when you place an order over $100 just enter the SUPERSAVER coupon code for a 15% discount. That’s a perfect way to stock your pantry AND do your holiday shopping.

Our gift to you: A 15% savings PLUS free shipping on any order over $100 by using the coupon code SUPERSAVER.

Good from Today through New Year’s Eve!

Oleocanthal Shown to Inhibit Melanoma

Oleocanthal is a polyphenol found in real extra virgin olive oil. It is already well documented as a very effective anti-inflammatory. In a recent study published in Nutrition and Cancer, it was also found to inhibit the growth of melanoma cancer cells. The study introduced concentrated amounts of oleocanthal into normal cells and melanoma cells and found the normal cells’ growth was regular but the melanoma cells’ growth was greatly reduced. The initial thinking is that the oleocanthal upsets the protein strains responsible for melanoma but that are not found in normal cells.

These are just initial experiments and much more study is needed to determine if consuming real extra virgin olive oil can actually have a inhibiting effect on cancerous cells. However, multiple studies in recent years all point in this direction.

New Salute Box

We are pleased to present our most economical organic oil – the SALÚTE – in a new, smaller 5 liter box. The oil is protected from oxygen by its special EVOH bag, which is better than other food-grade plastics at keeping air out and flavors in. The box protects the oil from light and includes a convenient handle and easy-to-use spigot. We expect many of you to appreciate these features in a package that will easily fit in your pantry.