Olive Tree

Mythology

The olive tree is a symbol of peace and harmony, endurance and strenth, renewal and hope.

Our Process

To make extraordinary extra virgin olive oil, great care and attention need to be placed ... every step of the way.

Biodynamic Farming

We never use any pesticides or harsh chemical in growing our olives. We follow organic farming guidelines while focusing on enriching the land and our ecosystem. In just a few years, we have succeeded in reintroducing a lot of wildlife such as birds and insects, as well as big earth worm population.

A healthy soil is important to produce a top quality extra virgin olive oil.

Hand picked for maximum quality

All our olives are hand picked by our crew, to protect the integrity of the fruits as well as not damaging the trees. Our pickers either use their hands or small plastic olive racks to gently brush the olives out of the branches. Olives that fall on the ground are not harvested, but will be picked up during the winter in an effort to control our olive fruit fly population.

Our crew generally starts at 5am and finish at noon, so we have time to process all the harvested olives within the same day.

Manually selected before milling

Producing a high-quality extra virgin olive oil requires great care and precision at every step of the process. We discard any olives that are not up to our standard in order to produce a superior product.​​​​​​​​ ​​​​​​​​ ​​​It is a very tedious part but we are committed to produce the best for our clients.​​​​​​​​

Milled within 24 hours

Time is of the essence in olive oil making, especially when you aim at producing the highest quality of Extra Virgin Olive Oil. The flesh part of the olive starts to degrade as soon as the olive is picked up from the tree, so the sooner you can press them, the higher quality the olive oil will be.

Since our own milling equipment is on our estate, we can process the freshly picked olives within the 24 hours window required to produce an optimum quality. The first batch usually starts within 6 hours of the harvest.

Small batches production

Our process is truly artisan. Our Italian Pieralisi mill Il Molinetto can only process small batches of 200 kilos or 450 pounds of olives at the time, which ends up creating 30 to 40 liters maximum of the liquid gold. We usually make 3 batches a day Quite the opposite of industrial production indeed.

But what we may lack in term of volume, we get it back in term of exceptional quality. Small production gives us the ability to watch and nurture every single batch. .​​​​​​​​

100% Raw

In order for an extra virgin olive oil to be recognized as ‘extra virgin’, it must be first cold pressed. Cold press means that the maximum temperature at which the mill can operate usually 27 °C (80.6 °F) which makes the olive oil raw. 

The olive oil extracted will undergo some filtration to separate the water content from the oil. Over the next weeks, the olive oil with be raked several times in order to remove the sediments that would shorten its shelf life. Then it will be ready for bottling

Chateau de Luz Ultra Premium Extra VIrgin Olive Oil

Climate-controlled

Extra Virgin Olive Oil is a raw and living product. As such, it is very susceptible to light and heat which will make it rancid very quickly. It is very important to store the oil in a dark and cool place, ideally between 53 and 62 °F (12 - 18 °C). This requirement may not be present with imported olive oils.

All our olive oil are properly stored until we ship them to our clients.

Bon Appetit

Your next Party

Visit our Recipes section for ideas and inspiration.

Read

Shop our Extra Virgin Olive Oil