This fragrant extra virgin olive oil comes from Belazu’s own olive groves and is made from Arbequina olives grown around the village of Albages in Catalonia, Northern Spain. Some of the trees in the grove date back to 1870. The advantage of taking oil from your own olive groves is that you have total control over the quality of oil produced. When harvesting we single out specific trees for just the right combination of green, purple and black olives, which create the flavour profile we’re after.
Typically the olives would be harvested between the second week of December and the second week of January but, as the name suggests, for our Early Harvest Oil the olives are picked in November. They are traditionally stone ground into a paste that is cold pressed at a temperature no higher than 30°C.
The Arbequina olive gets its name from the town of Arbeca in Lleida where it was originally cultivated. The Arbequina olive is small and the trees are usually planted on hilly, inaccessible ground making it difficult to harvest mechanically. This means a good proportion of the crop is picked by hand.
The oil is packaged in the 1 litre tin as soon as it is pressed to preserve the fresh, green flavours of the newly harvested crop. Keeping oil in a tin is an extremely effective way of preserving the quality of the oil as sunlight can cause the oil to oxidise and affect the colour and taste of the oil. Our oil is unfiltered so it is not totally clear and has some olive sediment that may settle at the bottom of the tin. This enhances the characteristic flavours of the oil and gives it a thicker more velvety texture.
