How much do you know
about the magic of olive oil?

Yes, it's official - olives and olive oil are magic!

The olive tree and olive oil have an amazing history, culture, symbolism and above all a wonderful flavour, powerful health properties, glorious cosmetic capacity and so many other uses.

This site will explore all this and more to help you get the best out of your olives and to answer questions like these :

Which are the best varieties for eating?

Which region produces the best oil?

Does it really make that much difference in cooking?

Where can you find the highest quality oils and how do you recognise a good one?

How is it good for your health?

Should you eat it, drink it, or rub it in?

Can the leaves be used and if so, what for?

What sort of things are made out of the wood of olive trees?

Our perspective.

We might as well admit it now.

We are biased!

In December 2007 we bought our farmhouse home in a magical valley in rural Italy. Along with the house came a lot of land - including a grove of fifty olive trees, with another seven or eight (we lose count!) scattered on other parts of our land.

What we knew about olives at that point could have been written on the back of a postage stamp. So we've been very lucky that Angelo and Beppe, the Italian brothers who sold us this beautiful house, which was their family home, have been our guides and mentors in all our learning about everything to do with olives.

Angelo, the younger brother, has been specially involved. The grove was his love and his passion, and when they sold us the house he found it very hard to give up care of the trees - so he was delighted when we asked him to show us how.

Angelo and wife Bruna show us how to harvest.

We're still learning, and we probably always will be. But what we do know is that nothing can compare with the taste of our very own olive oil - freshly cold pressed, gloriously green and with an aroma and a taste so incredibly rich and fruity. That's it in the pic at the top of your screen now, coming off the press and into our churn! To come back from the mill and drizzle some new oil on lightly toasted bread is, quite simply, food heaven.

But as we can't supply the whole world with our own olive oil, we'll point you in the direction of where you can get really good oils. We'll look at the differences, the ways you can use it, and the ways in which the rest of these amazing trees can also enhance your life.

We love this site as much as we love our grove of olive trees. It's our passion and our delight. We very much hope it will be yours too.