Rancho Azul y Oro ~ Surviving the Dream

You might be looking at the above picture and thinking, "Wow, look at that, Gold, Gold, Gold, Best of Class, Best of California." But we are reviewing our 2016 vintage and thinking, "How can we improve?  How can we do this better?"  What do we hope to achieve? For one, we hope to spread the word about our oils and how they can be used daily.  We can emphatically say that they are quality oils.  We work to get every detail right, from growing to harvesting, to selection of our mill, to formulating, to labels, to bottling, and then growing that enthusiasm about using olive oil daily and encouraging our family and fans to spread the word. One of the glaring areas of improvement as the creator of our flavored oils is that one silver medal.  If you know us, you'll know that silver is better than bronze, but we want this oil to have a gold medal -- not because we want medals, but because we want to offer the absolute best that can be offered.  This o...

How NOT to Store your EVOO I was recently asked by a friend what the best way to store olive oil is.  Of course, my eyes wandered over to the sight above, the numerous bottles of EVOO filling our counter top.  Pretending I was not seeing what was across from me, I proceeded to provide her with the following information about what can diminish the quality of the olive oil: LIGHT:  Keep your olive oil away from light (natural or otherwise).  Store in a dark cabinet or closet to prevent exposure;  You will notice that in the worst case scenario above, the olive oil is directly in the light. HEAT :  Keep your olive oil away from any source of heat.   Again, you will notice that in the worst case scenario above, the olive oil is directly next to the stove. COLD:   Do not refrigerate or freeze. AIR :  Seal your bottles of olive oil tightly.  Do not store your oil with pourers left in the bottle.  Air can get in even mor...

Can You See Our Vision or Does Smoke Get in Your Eyes? In the olive oil business, we are always looking for innovative ways olive oil can be used, which leads to creative thinking as to what type of olive oil to create in the first place.  Many producers offer the basics, an EVOO, a citrus olive oil, and an herbed olive oil. A few blog posts ago, I quoted George Patton, who said, "If everybody is thinking alike, then someone isn't thinking." We are one of the smallest olive oil producers amidst a sea of large olive oil producers, so we need to distinguish ourselves from the rest of the producers, try harder, work faster, and visualize concepts others have not yet tried.  Many times, customers ask what can be made with our oils.  We provide suggestions on our Facebook Page  as well under "Mealtime Inspiration" on our blog page, but there are times when some just do not understand our concept. Such is the case with our smoked olive oil.  We beg...

We got word late last week that we received four awards from the Central Coast Olive Oil Competition.  We were awarded a Silver Medal for our Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil, a Silver Medal for our Lemon-Infused Olive Oil, a Bronze Medal for our Orange-Infused Olive Oil, and a Bronze Medal for our Smoked Olive Oil. We are attempting, ourselves, to make sense out of the inconsistencies between the different judging panels.  The O/C member of our team reviews results with the plan of doing things better each year, and scrutinizes every fact provided but just cannot reconcile the results.  Some might suggest we ought to just celebrate the 12 awards we've received this year, with an additional two Best of Class Awards, but yet, we are left SOH (shaking our heads), as they say.  There are producers who submitted and did not win awards, so we are thrilled that, on the whole, all of our oils are award-winning. So, what mountain is left to scale this year?  One of the...