Our new 2024 Extra Virgin Olive Oil has arrived!
Located in the heart of Douro Valley, our 6 hectares of 800 olive trees range between 50 to 100 years old.
Olive oil, an essential part of the Mediterranean Diet and recognised as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, continues to gain prominence at Quinta do Tedo as part of our rural tourism and gastronomy offering.
With olivitourism on the rise, we’ve invested in olive farm and press visits and technical tasting training for our Tour Guides, and launched our unique Olive Oil Tasting to compare three Extra Virgin Olive Oils from different regions (including Quinta do Tedo's Organic Olive Oil).
In any free space between or bordering our 12 hectares of vineyards and local matos (low-lying Mediterranean shrub forest) we continue to plant olive trees. Given the above, and some Portuguese olive oil history for further context below, you’ll understand why…
— excerpt written by Odile Bouchard for a 2022 partner’s Portuguese travel blog —
“Olive trees have been cultivated since 5.000 BC, starting in Iran, Syria and Palestine and further spread by the Roman Empire spread across the Mediterranean basin into Portugal, where these drought-, fire-, and decay-resistant trees thrive. The Moors fine-tuned oliviculture in Portugal from the 1700s onwards. The Portuguese word for olive oil, azeite, actually hails from al-zeit, the Arabic word for “olive juice”.
Over centuries, olive oil became an integral part of the Mediterranean diet and economy, considered “liquid gold” as it’s not easy to produce nor cheap to consume and was cherished and traded as a source of nutrition, medicine and even fuel for lighting in the mid-1500s. Today, Portuguese consume an annual average of 8 liters of olive oil per person.
Italians and Spanish used to purchase and resell Portuguese olive oil as their own, hence its lack of an international reputation. Portuguese olive oil production also crashed in the 1960s with the introduction of margarine, a cheaper and allegedly healthier fat. When Portugal joined the EU in 1986, the government further offered farmers subsidies to destroy unprofitable olive groves throughout Portugal to make better agricultural use of the land.
In the early 2000s, piggybacking on quality olive oil’s growing international reputation as a “healthy food” and even a luxury good, Portuguese government officials and businessmen started to invest in the production and promotion of their national olive oil, an icon of Portuguese culture and gastronomy, for a price closer to what it’s worth and what could make them money (although Portuguese olive oil is still super affordable!) Focus turned to the remaining olive trees that were planted on Douro Valley’s stone-wall terraces to replace phylloxera ravaged vineyards in the late 1800s, and in Southern Portugal to support the 1900s sardine canning industry boom.
Today, Portugal’s six olive oil DOPs (Protected Designation of Origin) win gold medals at international competitions and adorn Michelin haute-cuisine and, since 2016, Portugal has been the world’s 8th largest quality olive oil producer - Portuguese olive oil is finally receiving the recognition it deserves.”
—
At Quinta do Tedo, we cultivate Douro’s main varieties - Cordovil, Cobrançosa, Verdeal, Carrasquenha and Moleirinha - organically and without irrigation.
Besides producing a high-quality, traditional and delicious product, olive trees add biodiversity to our 18-hectare estate and Tedo River eco-reserve; wild asparagus grow under them in Spring, and blue tits, field owls and the common swift nest or feed in their branches throughout the year.
Our olive trees are traditionally hand-harvested in late-October; our team hits them with long sticks until all their ripe fruit falls into nets spread around their bases, propped up at the ends to ensure no olives are lost down the steep slopes into Tedo River.
Our olives are then cold-pressed as an individual batch (not mixed with other producers’, as was done in cooperatives until independent mills began opening in the early 2000s) at our nearby organic mill.
Our fresh olive oil decants over winter - cooler temperatures help sediment out remaining solids and impurities - before bottling and hand-labelling. The end result? Our iconically fruity and intense Extra Virgin Olive Oil with mellow spice and a peppery "kick", a full mid-mouth, and a long finish - delicious and gastronomic!
Quinta do Tedo’s Extra Virgin Olive Oil is a best seller, it’s back in stock with a fresh new 2024 batch, and it’s available for purchase and delivery (EU/USA/UK) in our Tasting Room, Shop Online or Traditional Order Forms, or by email to commandes_orders@quintadotedo.com. We look forward to sharing the first bottles with you!
~ Odile & Kay Bouchard