Olive Oil in Our History
Accompanying us for over 6,000 yearsLong before gracing our tables, olive oil traversed human history like few other products ever could. The earliest evidence of olive cultivation dates back more than 6,000 years to the eastern Mediterranean—modern-day Syria, Israel, and Lebanon—where early farming communities discovered that from the fruit of this tree, a precious liquid could be extracted: nourishing, healing, and luminous.
In that era, olive oil was not yet—or not merely—a food. It was used as an ointment for the skin, as fuel for lamps, and as a medicinal remedy. So versatile was this product that it rapidly became a valued commodity of trade, and later a symbol: in Egypt, olive branches adorned the tombs of the pharaohs well before 1300 BCE; in biblical tradition, it is a dove bearing an olive twig that heralds to Noah the end of the flood, and ever since, the olive has endured across the Western world as the universal emblem of peace.
It was the Greeks who systematically spread olive cultivation throughout the Mediterranean basin. To them, olive oil was a gift from the gods—legend holds that Athena herself bestowed it upon the city that would come to bear her name, Athens—and a central fixture of daily life: athletes anointed their bodies with oil before competitions, and winners of the Olympic Games were crowned with wreaths of olive branches.
Later, the Romans carried the olive tree to every corner of their empire, refining cultivation and extraction techniques and elevating olive oil into a commodity so precious that it was even accepted as a form of tribute.
In Italy, and within our Umbria in particular, the olive tree has found fertile ground ever since the Etruscan era. Today, our hills still shelter monumental trees that have stood through the centuries—living witnesses to a heritage renewed with every harvest.
Yet the history of olive oil is not shaped solely by great civilizations and textbook chronicles; it is equally woven from humble folk traditions passed down through generations in our rural homes. In Italian—and specifically Umbrian—peasant culture, olive oil was for centuries far more than a condiment: a grandmother’s remedy for chapped skin, an offering for rites of good fortune, and a centerpiece of folklore surrounding the protection of hearth and family—such as the age-old practice, still widespread across many Italian regions today, combining oil and water in the traditional ritual against the evil eye (malocchio).
These stories illustrate just how deeply this product has always been woven into the fabric of daily life—not merely a food, but an enduring piece of culture and identity.
Today, as we craft our extra virgin olive oil, we feel both the weight and the privilege of this millenary heritage: a fruit that has journeyed through dynasties, empires, and folk traditions, and which continues—with ancient pressing now superseded by modern cold mechanical extraction technologies—to grace our tables, keeping intact its true essence as pure olive juice.