I spent harvest week with the Lombardi family in October 2025, and I have never seen olives move so quickly from tree to mill. They farm near Corato, in Puglia, on the same eleven hectares Nicola's grandfather planted, and every crate is pressed within four hours of picking. This is the oil we sell more of than any other, so in the autumn I went to see exactly how it is made, from the first rake of the morning to the smell of the mill at dusk.
Eleven hectares outside Corato
Nicola is in his seventies and still prunes every tree himself. Some of them are more than two hundred years old, gnarled and wide, with the kind of roots that hold a hillside together through the dry summer. His son Giuseppe runs the harvest, and his granddaughter Anna runs the mill and the tastings. Between them they look after eleven hectares of Coratina trees, a variety that is famous in Puglia for its peppery oil and its stubbornness in the field. Anna told me the old trees give less fruit but better oil, and that is why they have never replanted them.
Pressed within four hours
Harvest starts in mid October, while the olives are still green, because that is when the oil is at its most grassy and peppery. Nets go down under the trees and the family picks by hand, with small rakes for the higher branches. Every crate reaches the mill within four hours and is pressed cold, so the oil keeps its colour and its bite. The first oil comes out bright green, grassy and peppery, with a catch at the back of the throat that is the sign of a fresh, healthy oil. By the time it had settled in the tank it tasted of green tomato and rocket, exactly as it does in the bottle.
Why we buy the whole first pressing
We buy the whole first pressing of one grove and pay before the harvest, so the family can plan their year and we get the best of it. That is the kind of relationship we were after when we started the deli in 2012, and it is the reason the oil tastes the same every year. We taste each tank before it is bottled and turn down anything that has lost its lift. It is our bestseller, in 500ml bottles and 1 and 3 litre tins, and I would happily drink a spoonful of it any day of the week.
If you ever find yourself near Corato, Anna will pour you a taste at the mill and tell you exactly which grove your bottle came from. Until then, a bottle on the kitchen counter will do nicely, and a slice of good bread is all it really needs.
