We are so honored and excited to offer this oil again this year.
The Tenbrinks planted olives in the field opposite the winery before they built the winery in 2007-- 105 trees, from 7 different cultivars. They had in mind the polyculture of their families in Italy, where the terroir of grape growing always also encouraged the cultivation of olives. I have marveled in the past at the oils of Quintarelli, Cornelissen, Paolo Bea, Occhipinti and Clos Mogador in Priorat. This is the dream of a winemaker in a Mediterranean climate: to be able to offer his best clients an oil from an orchard of the same quality as his vineyards.

In 2012, The Tenbrinks made their first oil from the trees they had planted, and the oil was amazing-- one of the very best I have ever tasted. Cloudy, warm, rich, with excellent freshness and a kind of racy acidity. So green that it reminded me of basil, celery, chiles more than it did of fruit.

I asked them if I could have some olives that year, and have been offering oil made from their olives for every year since then.

The harvest this year was late, for such a warm, dry year: on two days, October 8 and 13. Ripening was very slow, and I think that flowering was late-- so the fruit is still very fresh and vivacious. The oil is super aromatic, as always, and very much on the fresh and grassy side. This is our most electric oil since the very first one, in 2013.

The oil is still cloudy; it has been settled, but is unfined and unfiltered. Its freshness is so powerful right now-- you will want to sip it right away. But it will keep easily for a year or more.

I have changed the price of this precious commodity in reaction to our straightened circumstances in the pandemic. The oil has previously been $1 per 10 milliliters; this year, we are lowering the price by 1/3, to $50 for a 750 ml bottle.

We will offer only 100 bottles of this oil.