As you may know, last year was especially tough. Pretty much everything that could go wrong, did. The whole growing region suffered from a severe frost right at bud-set, which killed many of the tender olive flowers, and in the case of some of our neighboring farms, whole groves of trees. This meant a huge overall reduction in yields, and challenges sourcing additional oil.

Plus we had no water for our main grove and it was a hot, hot, HOT summer. There was nothing we could do: the lake that feeds the creek that waters our grove was below the threshold where water can be released. This was only the second time in 75 years this has happened, but unfortunately the first time was just 2 years prior, so the trees were already pretty dry. Luckily, they're surviving and doing well this coming year, fingers crossed! But last year, no water, and so no crop.

This year, we are thankful that the crop set well, we have plenty of water, thanks to the rains (finally!), and temperatures have been mild so far this year—quite an ideal growing season thus far!

We are hopeful and looking forward to an abundant crop with lots of varieties of olives this year, some which we hope to feature on their own, such as the Organic Picual and Organic Arbequina, as well as Organic Coratina, which we didn't have enough of to offer as a single varietal this year, and so it just went into our House Blend.