Tuscany is famous for its beautiful olive orchards and exceptional olive oil. For years now, we have a special relationship with someone here in Northern California who has a small, Tuscan-style grove that delivers one of the very best oils we mill. The grove, located in the cool, rolling foothills of Petaluma, is planted with a mix of Tuscan varieties – Frantoio, Maurino, Leccino, and a few Pendolino trees. The olives are very, very small, and the fresh oil trickles out of the mill with an incredible dark emerald color and stunning vegetal aromas.
Sam Saltonstall, seen here with his son, Sam, and Gianni, is one of our hero-growers. He carefully tends his trees using sustainable, organic methods, and is so strongly committed to getting the best oil possible, that – even now at 80 years old – each evening, he loads up the day’s harvest and sets out at 4 am to drive his olives to our mill, arriving four hours later so that they can be milled immediately on what he has found to be the best mill around. He unloads and returns home straight away to get another load of olives to us the next day.
This year we are lucky and honored to offer his oil in our bottles, under the Gold Series “Tuscan” label. If you are tempted to experience Sam’s oil, the limited production of 720 bottles is available only on our web site.
