Capalia organic extra virgin olive oil

Capalia is our farm in the Cilento National Park, a mountainous area south of the bay of Salerno that is littered with olive trees. The traditions are ancient and strong, the people self-reliant and the landscape tough. Every year we pick the olives in early October with a team of family and friends from the Cilento, and several friends from the UK. In this way we hope to keep alive the tradition of the harvest as a time for community and family, while also providing a new experience for some.

our approach

Our olive picking is not a large industrial production. We love and use abundant amounts of it ourselves and appreciate that this simple golden liquid is a delicious addition to a healthy and tasty way of living.

We pick our olives very early in the year. This is to ensure the highest possible quality of oil. For oil to be extra-virgin it must be below 0.8% acidity. As the olives ripen their acidity content goes up, so picking early ensures lower acidity. Another factor is the presence of a fly; ‘La Mosca’ that lays its larvae in the olives. The larvae increase the acidity of the oil. As an organic farm we do not use pesticides to keep the fly at bay, so to mitigate this we pick early before the fly has had a chance to infect too many olives.

During the rest of the year, the land is mostly fallow, only kept free from long grasses during the summer for the sake of forest-fires. The trees are pruned once every couple of years to make sure they retain their shape and produce high-quality oil, but not excessively.

a day of picking olives

A day of harvest starts at 7.30am. Unlike many romantic notions of the olive harvest, a petrol-powered generator is used to power the ‘combs’ that make the olives fall. This is not a silent, idyllic activity.

This year’s harvest has produced an oil that is bright, sharp and extremely high quality. Rain in spring and a long hot summer ensured the trees were laden and the olives heavy with oil.

At around 6pm the olives are emptied into sacks and our 4x4 panda is filled to the brim. We then take the olives to the mill and collect the pressed oil on the same day. An average harvest day can finish at 10pm, with a 7.30am start on the next day. At the end of a week, your muscles are screaming with exhaustion.