Rancho Azul y Oro ~ Surviving the Dream

We're pleased to share that Rancho Azul y Oro has been honored with three medals in the Napa Valley Olive Oil Competition: A Silver Medal for our Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil, a Silver Medal for our Orange-Infused Olive Oil, and a Bronze Medal for our Lemon-Infused Olive Oil. With this announcement comes the end of our competition year, a full-court press to finish bottling and labeling, taking advantage of every opportunity to market and share the oil with you (Translation: Buy Olive Oil). This stage also causes us to review and reflect upon how we can improve things next year, call it our New Year's in May: Avoid rookie mistakes:  Review established procedures each year and follow them to avoid errors we made when we were newbies that shouldn't be happening.  Most mistakes happen when we're in a hurry and there is a price to be paid for haste. Refine and Rework:  Crafting recipes to infuse olive oil is rocket science, combined with art, as are many bus...

2016 EVOO Olive harvest began at sunrise on November 5th, 2016 and was our largest harvest.  In order to be certified EVOO, the olives must be picked, sorted, and milled within 24 hours, and then pass a chemical test and then a sensory evaluation in a blind tasting by an expert panel.  Our goal is to get them in and milled within 12 hours. Our olive oil passed its chemical test on November 7th, 2016 and is being prepared to be submitted to the tasting panel for evaluation.  In the meantime, our olio nuovo will be released in the next two weeks, and then the balance of the oil will be allowed to rest and the oil will then be filtered and bottled in January.   This was our largest harvest, and unfortunately, circumstances precluded many family members from participating this year.  Had it not been for the very generous donation of time and effort on the part of our friends, Bing and Karla Seid, we may not have been able to complete this very daunt...