Production of extra virgin olive oil and products from Liguria for sale online
The San Martino Mill is a family-run business that since 1932 has been producing gastronomic delights from the Ligurian territory; we are specialized in the trade of the famous and precious Monocultivar Taggiasca extra virgin olive oil..
Our family has a long history in the production of renowned Ligurian olive oil and other local products, and we have decided to continue the tradition and focus on quality and on the recovery of ancient production techniques instead than on mere quantity: that’s why production is a core value in our history.
We produce high-quality extra virgin olive oil – complete with all the organoleptic nuances that make the Taggiasca olive variety famous all over the world – thanks to a slow, traditional, cold production that favours human action to the mechanical one. All the stages of manufacturing, from the hand-collection to the bottling of our oil, contribute to bringing a real Taggiasca nectar to your table.
Let’s find out more about the steps through which our extra virgin olive oil is produced:
Collection
Characterized by narrow bands, dry stone walls and centuries-old trees of exclusive Taggiasca variety, our olive groves are located in the hills at a height between 250 and 400 meters above sea level and have different exposures, some facing the sea and others exposed to the North. This variety of microclimates allows us to have fruits that ripen at different times with a distribution of the olive harvest from November to February; the collection takes place using electric beaters and the typical “trappe”, long sticks still used today to drop the olives from the tops of the taller trees that reach heights over 10 meters. Hand-picked from the nets, our delicious olives at the end of the day are taken to the mill to be processed.
The grinding
Once arrived at the mill in the baskets, the olives are weighed, defoliated and washed and then poured by hand into the mill, once mechanically driven by the water that was channelled by the stream and today converted to electricity. The grinder is composed of a large stone basin in which two heavy granite olive mills slowly rotate and in about 40 minutes they gently crush the olives to create a homogeneous paste. Our ancient and recovered method of working involves a low emulsification between water and oil: this allows to obtain higher qualitative and quantitative yields and is the perfect process to enhance valuable varieties such as the Taggiasca one, obtaining a very high-quality oil.
The pressing
Performed with the classic method of the so-called “first cold pressing“, this phase separates the oil must from the pomace by filtration with the help of a hydraulic press, without the addition of hot water. The entire loading operation of a press is done by hand by placing the oil paste inside filter discs stacked on top of each other in a tower which is wheeled and subjected to average pressures of about 300 atm. As a result of the pressure, the oil must is separated from the solid part, flows along the side and is collected in a special steel tank waiting for the next phase. Once the extraction is finished, the pile is removed and the pomace took away; now dry, it is used for heating.
The San Martino Mill extra virgin olive oil
The must obtained by pressing still contains a small amount of residual water which will be eliminated from the oil due to the different density of the two liquids. This is done by means of a centrifugal separator which by virtue of a high-speed rotation performs the separation. At the exit from the separator the oil appears turbid and is ready to be consumed: it is not filtered but stored in steel barrels at controlled temperature waiting as the solid residue settles on the bottom and the oil becomes clear spontaneously. After several months rest in our mill in Dolcedo, in Spring our extra virgin olive oil is packed in sealed dark glass bottles, so as to preserve all the organoleptic qualities of this unique product.
Genuine Ligurian olive oil at its best, just like it used to be
These are the steps we take for the production of our quality extra virgin olive oil: a slow and attentive process that is the result of ancient knowledge and passion remained unchanged over time just like the genuine taste of our oil. Still today the family recipe is the same that we brought with us in 1932, but with a secret ingredient: the recovery of the ancient mill tradition.
