Quercia Verde olive oil at Apley Farm Shop

Some of our Shropshire friends are making a delicious olive oil in Italy & we’re delighted to now have it on sale at Apley Farm Shop.

They’ve just sent me these photos showing the lovely location & production process. I think food always tastes better when you know its provenance & a bit about it.

Quercia Verde is an olive estate near an Etruscan hill town on the borders of Tuscany and Umbria. The steep, terraced hillsides have been a home for olive trees for centuries. Our friends bought & restored the house & land in 1998. Many of the trees in the abandoned olive groves needed radical pruning, new trees needed to be planted & walls replaced which had been knocked down by the wild boar. Gradually over the years the trees have recovered and terraces restored. The trees are pruned in February, a little organic fertilizer applied in March & the groves are mowed to keep the grass down in July after the wild flowers have seeded. In the summer, on very dry days, collected rain water is used to provide a light refreshment for the trees. The olives are picked by hand & immediately cold pressed locally. The liquid from this is the pure olive oil, which is kept in a large tank. The result is 150 litres of the finest, completely uncontaminated, unfiltered, single estate olive oil !

The Italian Government now require anyone selling their oil as Tuscan Extra Virgin Olive Oil has to be registered. Each year the oil has to be tested before the IGP (Indicazione Geografica Protetta = Protected Geographical Identification) certificate will be issued. Quercia Verde oil now has a guarantee as extra virgin olive oil from Tuscany.