About Quercia Verde
Quercia Verde sits under the walls of Cortona, a beautiful Etruscan hill town on
the borders of Tuscany and Umbria. The steep, terraced hillsides have been a home
for olive trees for centuries.
A river runs through the terraces from the monastery where St Francis of Assisi
lived for 3 years of his life and is said to be blessed.
In 2005 the abandoned olive groves around Quercia Verde were cleared, although important
oaks and fruit trees were left; the old trees (approximately 250) had to be pruned.
The estate now has over 600 trees over 6 hectares.
The olives are usually picked in late October by hand, before damage by autumn wind
and rain, weather permitting. Each of the four groves is picked in turn with the
olives taken within 24 hours to the cold press mill nearby. A minimum of 20 cases
of olives is required by the mill to ensure that only our olives are included in
a pressing. The old system is used with a large stone wheel crushing the olives,
followed by an hour of churning and then loading a plate with a layer of the mash
and then another plate to up to a stack of 12 plates. This is then subjected to
400psi for nearly an hour resulting in the oil, which is then stored for 2 months
to allow the sediment to settle before bottling.
The trees are pruned in February and the groves are mowed to keep the grass down
in July after the wild flowers have set seed. A little organic fertilizer is applied
in March. In the summer on very dry days collected rain water is used to provide
a light refreshment for the trees.
The result is a completely uncontaminated, unfiltered, single estate olive oil!