The Olive Farm
Our Olive Farm is located in the Impero Valley, Liguria just fifteen minutes from the staggeringly beautiful Mediterranean coast in the foothills of the Italian Alps.
After just a couple of visits, word went round that we were serious buyers looking to piece together a small estate, with plans to restore the land and trees to their full glory in order to make our own label, single estate, Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
Armed with an immense amount of contradictory advice and frighteningly little real knowledge of what constitutes a ‘good buy’, we chose the trees for our Villaggio di Bestagno label.
It took the best part of three years to negotiate and put together our groves. Most of the land we decided upon was derelict and forlorn and a substantial amount of our trees had been neglected since the end of the war. With some of the groves we acquired parts of an ancient castle ‘Castello di Bestagno’ and a vineyard within its walls.
With bags of beginner’s enthusiasm and a very basic grasp of the language, we set out on what has become the adventure of a lifetime worthy of any TV reality show.
Some of the trees had been abandoned since the war. … but after a good pruning and a year’s growth they picked up and were loaded with olives at the next harvest!
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In a basement storage room on our farm we found an old olive press like this one. We don't know how long ago since it was used to make oil, but during this year we plan to restore it to see if we can make at least some of our oil using the traditional grinding method.
