Category: Health

LOCATION AND CLIMATE

As you might expect, olives grown in cooler areas where there is more moisture (rainfall and dew) exhibit leaner, more restrained characteristics. This doesn’t however mean that great oil can now be made in Iceland – you need a minimum amount of sunshine to make your Extra Virgin Olive Oil taste remarkable, similarly to tomatoes or stone fruit.

Olive trees are sensitive to winter freeze (the Casaliva cultivar is more resistant to cold, hence being grown in the Garda region). It is also easier to farm organically where the climate is more stable and less chemical sprays are required to keep the trees healthy.

OLIVE MATURITY

Here’s the thing – all olives are green. When they become fully mature, they turn black.
Olive maturity at the time of harvest is a major factor in flavour and quality: olives harvested earlier (green olives) feature more bitter, grassy characteristics, with lower yields and with the highest anti-oxidant content. The oil is a much more intense green colour and has a longer shelf-life. In terms of production, milling can take longer with green olives (a longer malaxation - the action of slowly churning milled olives to release droplets of oil - is needed and can be more complicated) but the results are far superior! Don’t choose olive oil from over mature fruit: it lacks all the potential goodness and flavour.

ATTENTION TO DETAIL IN GROVE AND MILL

People who care passionately about what they make and follow it personally every day have the capacity to create products with far higher quality, with integrity, and that taste of where they come from. They are also able to do this by caring for the environment they inhabit.

FRANTOIO DI RIVA BOX

This box contains 6 bottles of extra virgin olive oil made exclusively by Frantoio di Riva from groves on the banks of lake Garda.

Frantoio di Riva, 46°PARALLELO green label x 3 bottles (50cl)
Frantoio di Riva, 46°PARALLELO organic white label x 1 bottle (50cl)
Frantoio di Riva, 46°PARALLELO blue label x 1 bottle (50cl)
Frantoio di Riva, ULIVA Garda Trentino DOP x 1 bottle (50cl)

October 30, 2022

High Polyphenols, Mounting Evidence

We are in a sea of healthy eating messaging that is often so overwhelming. The overlaying of sound advice with commercial reasoning is, at times, hard to navigate. I probably follow more than my fair share of nutritionists and food passionate individuals and sometimes that balance between what is suggested and what is real just sends me off for a few days and I get lost.

November 16, 2021

Why do antioxidants in olive oil matter

We often find that people are interested in the antioxidant content of our olive oil selections.

The olive oils that we work with each have comparatively high levels of polyphenols and that’s for a number of reasons:

Why fresh olive oil is so much better for you

October 28, 2020

What’s so special about new season olive oil?

Extra Virgin Olive Oil is freshly pressed juice that arrives once a year as autumn sets in. It has absolutely no additives or preservatives and is the only cooking oil made without the use of chemicals or industrial refining. Just let that sit for a moment.READ MORE

September 8, 2020

The Anti-Inflammatory: Extra Virgin Olive Oil

‘Itis’ is a wonderful colloquial word to describe the feeling of tiredness after you eat too much (food coma is a pretty useful term too). But what if you are often feeling slight itis – always a little full and a little exhausted? Nutritionists will tell you it is worth considering your bacterial flora and that potentially, your digestive tract could be inflamed.READ MORE

It's so good for you, you should drink it

September 5, 2020

You need to be drinking this!

You need to be drinking this. Extra Virgin Olive Oil is an incredibly powerful natural anti-inflammatory. It is exactly what nutritionists and immunologists are talking about us needing during this global pandemic. But it’s not a concocted supplement; it’s a naturally pressed juice with no additives.
READ MORE