Our Olive Grove: A Cortona Story

Nelson at our Cortona olive grove looking in the distance

Our Cortona olive grove

Cortona, an ancient Etruscan hill town rising above the Val di Chiana valley in the heart of Tuscany, has been drawing people in for centuries: artists, writers, travelers, and those simply searching for something real. Its cobble stone streets, its light, its views stretching out toward Lake Trasimeno. It is the kind of place that quietly insists you slow down. Frances Mayes wrote about it in its acclaimed book Under The Tuscan Sun. The world fell in love with it. Those of us who know it understand that no book or film has ever quite done it justice.

Olive groves have been part of this landscape for as long as anyone can trace. The hillside conditions here: the altitude, the soil composition, the particular way the seasons move through this part of Tuscany; they create an environment that consistently produces oil of exceptional character and the highest quality. It is centuries of evidence that go beyond any marketing material could possibly offer.

Our grove sits in the hills just outside town, several hundred trees bordered by forest, quiet and unhurried in the way that only old land can be. The grove had been tended with devotion for years before it came to us. When the previous owners could no longer care for it as it deserved, we were given the opportunity to invest in it, and take responsibility for what it produces for years to come. That sense of stewardship and sustainability sits at the heart of everything we do here.

For the 2026 harvest, we will produce exclusively olio nuovo, early harvest oil, pressed during the first two weeks of October when the fruit is at its best quality and polyphenol levels are at their peak. The grove sets the limit on what we can produce, and that limit is part of what makes it worth having. Pre-sale allocations are open now. We will not be sitting on unsold stock as we produce small quantities and they fly off the shelf.

The Starting Point - The Soil

Everything begins with the soil. Healthy, living soil produces healthier trees, better fruit, and ultimately better oil. We nourish our grove exclusively with natural manure, and seasonal cover crops including fava beans, which naturally fix atmospheric nitrogen, restore fertility, and support the biodiversity that keeps the land in balance. No synthetic fertilizers, ever.

The choices we make in spring determine the quality of what we harvest in autumn, and the choices we make today determine the health of the grove for decades to come. We farm with that responsibility in mind.

We Pick It Ourselves

Every olive at Piuma d'Oro is picked by hand by us, by family, by the people who care about what ends up in the tin. It is slower, more labor intensive but we also have fun in the process. This way is far more deliberate than industrialized mechanical harvesting which is precisely the point.

Hand harvesting allows us to be selective. To choose olives at their ideal moment of ripeness, it is when polyphenol content is at its peak and the fruit carries the full complexity of the season. It also protects the trees themselves, avoiding the stress and damage that mechanical methods can cause.

At the end of each harvest day, the olives travel less than a mile to our local frantoio for immediate pressing. That distance, and that speed, matters enormously. The longer olives sit after picking, the more oxidation occurs and the more of what makes the oil exceptional is lost. We do not let that happen.

Less Than a Mile, Within Hours

Our oil is mechanically cold extracted at temperatures below 27°C. This is non-negotiable. Heat extraction increases yield, but it destroys the very qualities that define a premium extra virgin olive oil: the aroma, the flavor complexity, the polyphenols and antioxidants that give the oil its character and its credentials.

Cold pressing, done within hours of harvest, preserves all of it. The result is an oil that tastes as it should be: peppery, grassy, bright, and that carries measurable nutritional value alongside exceptional flavor.

Directions to our local frantoio (olive mill) where we press our olives once for maximum flavour and health benefits

Protected From Grove to Tin

Once extracted, the oil is stored in sealed stainless steel containers in a temperature controlled environment. Stainless steel protects against light, oxygen, and contamination, the three enemies of oil quality in the period between pressing and bottling.

Our choice of tin packaging follows the same logic. We know that glass looks beautiful on a shelf. We also know that it lets light in, and light degrades olive oil. Our tin is designed to protect what is inside it, keeping the oil in the same condition it left the mill for as long as possible for you to enjoy at its freshest. It is a deliberate choice, made in service of the oil rather than appearances.

We believe that oil produced with this level of care deserves packaging that takes the final step just as seriously while making it economically viable for everybody involved.

At Piuma d'Oro, we hold every link in the production chain to the highest of standards. Because the oil in the tin is only as good as the care taken at every stage before it. This is what we are building. Every harvest.

Biodiversity & Land Stewardship

A grove is not just the trees. It is everything that lives between them, beneath them, and around them, and at Piuma d'Oro, we take that seriously.

Our land borders a natural forest. Preserving these habitats is not incidental to what we do; it is part of it. The balance between cultivated grove and wild forest supports the ecosystem that the entire operation depends on: healthy soil, natural pest resistance, and the kind of quiet biodiversity that industrial farming slowly erodes.

Pollinators are welcome here. Neighboring beehives sit alongside our grove, and we actively encourage the presence of bees and other pollinators. Their work is essential, not just to olive reproduction, but to the broader health and productivity of the land. A grove that supports pollinators is a grove that is genuinely alive.

We farm completely clean. No chemicals. No synthetic fertilizers. No pesticides. Not in the grove, not at the mill. Every choice we make from soil to pressing is rooted in traditional, low intervention methods, because high quality oil has to be produced in a way that is consistent with it. We would not have it any other way.

This land was here long before us. Our job is to leave it better than we found it.