Surprisingly, Tuscany is responsible for only 4 percent of Italy's olive oil production, since its climate and terrain are harsher than those of many other Italian regions: for example, in Apulia (Italy's most prolific olive oil producer), an olive tree yields twenty times as many olives as the same tree planted in Tuscany. This lower yield per tree means that Tuscan olives are a concentrate of flavor and aroma, which makes their oil more pronounced than that generally pressed elsewhere in Italy. In the best of cases, Tuscan olive oil is pressed from olives that are picked by hand when not quite ripe: hand-picking the olives ensures minimal bruising before they are brought to the mill, and picking the olives before they fully ripen yields a more intensely flavored oil.

Our olives are hand picked, and any olive that hits the ground, will not be used.