2015 Harvest - The Year of the Nasrid Olive Oil

Lechín de Granada: The 500 year old olive trees that we harvested for the first time this year for our brand new premium Nasrid Olive Oil

The most ancient olive trees on our organic farm, the Lechín de Granada variety, were planted in the early 1500s by the Moriscos, the direct descendants of the inhabitants of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada in the Middle Ages. Five hundred years on, this exclusive variety of olive is rarely harvested due to the small size of the fruit and the strength with which it adheres to the tree. The only way to gather it is through patient, time-consuming hand picking. 

In 2015, after decades of wild fruiting, we decided to capture this ancient variety of olive which, despite its challenging harvesting process, yields a revered and exquisite oil. We carefully monitored the trees through the long ripening cycle that characterises our high altitude olive grove here in the Sierra Nevada. By January, the fruit was ready. 

We hand harvested the fruit between the 12th and 15th of January, gathering the Lechín olives together with the Hojiblanca variety that grows alongside them on 100-year-old trees. 

Guy and Daniel harvesting the Lechín de Granada olives

Daniel and James (Guy's cousin and guest picker)
filling another sack with the precious olives

After four days of hard work, we had five hundred kilograms of olives ready to press. We took them for milling to our local almazara in the Moorish village of Nigüelas.  

The fruits of our labour:
500kg of olives delivered to the mill

Two hours later we watched over one hundred litres of our new Nasrid olive oil flowing from the mill. 

Our new Nasrid extra virgin olive oil emerges from the mill

The ancient Lechín olive produces a spicy, intense and aromatic oil. Its aromas have traces of the Sabana almonds on the land, and of wild mountain herbs, particularly of rosemary, lavender, thyme and santolina. The centenary Hojiblanca olive yields a silky and sweeter oil, with a smoother and more delicate texture. The blend of both olives has a uniquely robust, full bodied, and mildly spicy taste. 

This single estate blend of Lechín-Hojiblanca gives a deliciously fruity and balanced olive oil. It will be sold exclusively in our shop from February this year as Nasrid extra virgin olive oil, alongside the classic Los Olivos Organic Extra Virgin olive oil.