Timor

EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL SORT: BELICA | HARVEST: OCT 25 BATCH: 300L | SOURCED: 30L

Herbal and savory, with grass, artichoke and olive leaf aromas supported by almond and fresh tomato notes. Tomato leaf adds brightness, while the finish stays clean and persistent.

€27 ~~€30~~

PUNGENT

BITTER

FRUITY

Stone Roots Flavor &
Freshness
Guarantee

Only 30L
Available

Rich, grassy flavor
High-polyphenol
Great for everything

This is the good stuff

Not supermarket oil, not a blend of a hundred anonymous oils poured into one bottle to taste the same every year. One grower, one grove, one harvest, picked by hand and pressed the same day, after a season of hours in the grove looking after the trees.

No weak juice

Olive growing here happens at the northern edge of cultivation. Cold winters, strong burja winds and rocky soil create oils with more structure, freshness and naturally high pepperiness. Picking early, before the fruit is fully ripe, lowers the yield and amplifies everything you taste.

No two harvests are the same

Harvest follows the season, not the industrial pace. Most growers work small plots, harvest early and produce limited quantities under their own name, without chasing uniformity or volume. They work with what the year gives them instead of forcing consistency.

Less ground, more awards

All the North Adriatic groves combined cover less ground than a handful of estates in Andalusia, yet the oils from here still rank among the most awarded in the world. Producers here don't cut corners. Doing things right is worth more than doing things easy.

Some technical stuff

Best before: 1.5.2027
Produced by: Timor
Category: Superior Extra virgin olive oil obtained directly from olives and solely by mechanical means
Average nutritional value per 100 g: energy 3700 kJ / 900 kcal · fat 100 g, of which saturates 16 g · carbohydrate 0 g, of which sugars 0 g · protein 0 g · salt 0 g

In the words of

Orjana Hrvatin

Small and scattered isn't a weakness, it's how you get it right.

Stone Roots: Six groves sounds like a lot to manage. Isn't one big estate easier?

Orjana Hrvatin: It's actually the opposite. A grove at sea level ripens first, one further inland ripens later, so each gets picked at its own right moment instead of all at once.

Stone Roots: What difference does hand-harvesting actually make?

Orjana Hrvatin: The olives don't suffer any harm on the way in. They reach the mill almost untouched, and that's really what improves the quality.

Putting it back together, one grove at a time.

In Puče near Šmarje, olive growing runs through the family, though not without interruption. There was a mill here before the war, then it was gone, and the family scattered across Slovenia and Italy the way families did back then.

In the mid-80s, Orjana's father started replanting the old trees, one grove at a time, and what exists today, six plots and around 800 trees, is really the result of that slow work of putting something back together.

Key takeaways from our visit

1. Scattered on purpose

“Land here gets split between family members generation after generation, so groves end up small and spread out, and that's exactly what lets each one be picked at its own right moment.”

2. Hand means untouched

“Picking by hand means the olives never get bruised or damaged on the way in, so they arrive at the mill close to how they came off the tree, and that's really where the quality starts.”

3. One grove at a time

“The mill and the old trees were lost before the war, and the family scattered along with them. Bringing it all back started in the mid-80s, and it wasn't one project, it took years of replanting, grove by grove.”

The Stone Roots Project

Stone Roots is a community, a club if you may, of people who like to slow down, eat good shit, drink good shit, and sometimes do good shit.