The timing and method of harvesting are essential and crucial components in the production of a quality olive oil. According to Tuscan tradition, the olive harvest takes place long before the fruit is fully ripe, with operations usually starting in early November and proceeding through mid-December.
This results in an olive oil high in flavor and rich in chlorophyll and polyphenols, ingredients that preserve the oil and prevent it from aging and oxidizing. As far as harvesting procedures are concerned, the Colle Verde Estate strictly avoids the use of canes for beating the trees or of nets to collect fallen olives blown to the ground by the wind.
Only hand-picking can guarantee the perfect state required of olives before they are transported to the Estate’s mill for cold pressing into oil.