I just received an offer from Medlock Ames for purchasing their olive oil. I’ve received other such offers over the years but have only bought some bottles when I am actually in wine country. I searched the forum and only saw something relevant for oil sold by the Rare Wine Co. Finally, this seems the best board forum to post this question.
Does anyone have opinions or thoughts about which wineries produce the best olive oil? Whether it’s buying wine, olive oil, or other bling, I’d like to support the wineries. Thanks.
Terroir al Limit Priorat Caragols Olive Oil Extra Virgin (less than 2000 bottles produced, 20 sitting here with me). Sorry, it is hard to source in NJ. Maybe impossible.
Interested to hear what others say. I’ve been to several wineries that also offer olive oil at their tasting room, but I never thought about taking notes. Sometimes they’ve seemed light, and other times astringent, or sometimes too grassy. We visited Turley earlier this year, and bought a bottle from them; however, we gave it away as a gift. I remember it struck us as a good tasting olive oil.
Years ago we visited a small winery in Napa, and they made olive oil. I was fascinated by the idea at the time. The only reason we learned that they did so was because the owner walked in with a few bottles. We, are someone else, asked if there were samples or tastes. The owner made some comment like, “It so limited there is no f*cking way I’m going to let people sample it!”
DaVero Farms and Winery (Healdsburg) might be one of the few locations where Olive Oil production is prioritized on the same level as their wine-making. They have a large grove of Italian varietals propagated from cuttings they brought in from Italy. Their Olio Nuovo truly is green gold. And, their oil has been praised publicly by a few celebrity chefs - including a formerly popular food network famed Italian chef.
If you like Tuscan style olive oil made by California wineries, by far the best is DaVero in Dry Creek or Hudson Ranch in Carneros. For both, the wines are pretty mediocre, but the oils are excellent.
Otherwise, in my experience, most higher end wineries that make olive oils in California are Mission blend derivatives which are quite boring IMO.
I have always loved the olive oil produced by Bruce Cohn and bearing the B R Cohn label. I know the oil has garnered great press and many awards over the years.
The Massican olive oil was very good, but I vastly prefer Berserker Nola Palomar’s Veleta Olive Oil over anything I have had from a winery. Heck I prefer it over just about anything!
You should consider Veleta Olive Oil from our very own Berserker Nola Palomar…imported directly from her farm in Spain. I buy a case of 12-bottles every BerserkerDay!