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Villa Arrigo is first documented in 1427, and the fame of its olive oil goes back nearly as many centuries. We personally tend and harvest all of our trees.

We produce an extra virgin olive oil that is considered to be the healthiest and tastiest available in the world.

The FDA suggests two Tbs. daily to decrease risk of coronary heart disease. We recommend its use to enhance your culinary pleasures

It is cold pressed and unfiltered; any residue is part of a natural settling process. Olive oil must be stored in a cool, dark place but not refrigerated.

click to enlarge While olive oil has been known around the world for a very long time, specialty extra-virgin cold-pressed olive oils from the selected producing areas around Florence in the heart of Tuscany have until recently been the prerogative of the locals. Just like unique wines, the nectar of the olive tree invites the same kind of connoisseurship that until recently was reserved to the nectar of the vine, its traditional Mediterranean counterpart. Taste is the crucial element. And exceptional taste can only be obtained from olives grown on selected terrain and processed according to ancient traditions.

With a little bit of luck you can find a pretty good olive oil on the shelves of most specialty food shops and sometimes even in quality-conscious super- markets. However, if you are looking for an exceptional oil, you will not be satisfied with what you find on the supermarket shelves. You can expect to spend as much for a bottle of fine oil as you would for an important bottle of wine and you will, mostly likely have to sample diverse oils before finding an extraordinary one.

L'Arrigo Extra-Virgin Olive Oil is an extraordinary Olive Oil. Our job is to take a healthy olive and turn it into a perfect oil, for those select individuals who can appreciate the difference.

	How to produce an exceptional Olive Oil	Many factors must coalesce in the production of a specialty olive-oil
CLIMATE	The climate must be temperate, not too hot in the summer but cold enough in the winter. A few degrees below freezing results in an oil that is delicate in flavor.	Olive trees can tolerate little rain during the summer months. Olive groves should be on hills, not flat terrain, as they need proper drainage to guarantee good fruit. The soil must contain calcium.	*Olive trees need sun and water.*
LOCATION	The hills are ideal for olive trees because the trees take the water they need and the rest flows rapidly into the valley.		The hills above Florence are truly a paradise for growing olive trees.
EXPOSURE	The exposure to the sun depends on the original design used for planting the olive trees.	In the old days, olive trees were planted far apart because land wasn't expensive. The trees had the possibility to absorb the right amount of sunlight. Nowadays trees are planted so closely together that their branches intertwine almost before the trees are old enough to yield fruit.	The majority of our olive trees were planted fifty years ago and all have an abundance of space between each tree.
VARIETY OF OLIVES	Another important component for quality oil that is rapidly being lost in modern olive production is the variety of olives being grown. Today, there is a tendency to plant only one or two kinds of trees that are known to be hardy and resistant to infestation, In Spain or in Southern Italy, in Tunisia or in France, the modern groves have little variety in their plants, a trend which makes all olive oil taste the same.	It is important to maintain a variety of species of olive trees so that the oil from one zone is noticeably different from oil from another zone, an important natural distinction which allows for a better pollination between trees, resulting in a more interesting and healthier oil for the consumer.	These characteristics, so different from the modern standard techniques, are our most important patrimony, which we determined to maintain and protect.. We host the following varieties: - Correggiolo - Frantoio - Giogolino - Leccino - Maurino - Moraiolo - Pendolino
THE HARVEST	By now, everyone knows that the harvest methods and the kind of press enormously influences the flavor and quality of the oil. It is most important that during the picking the olive skins not be bruised or broken so that the olives reach the press with their protective coating.	To guarantee a superior oil, olives must be pressed within 24 hours of being picked, and must be kept dry from the time they are picked until they are pressed so they won't begin to mould. Many types of presses exist but a cold press won't distort the flavor of the oil, even though it will yield less oil from the olives than a heated press. Olives should only be pressed once. Repeated pressings result in an inferior quality of oil.	Our olives are pressed the same day they are picked. In the morning our olives are on the trees, by night they have been transformed into oil, a simple and direct process that never fails to thrill us.

Classification: EXTRA VIRGIN:	Extra Virgin Olive Oil takes its name from the fact that its acid level is inferior to one percent. Above one percent, oil is classified as Virgin, or, if the acid is still higher, the oil is classified as Olive Oil		Our olive oil has almost no acid at all. It never tests higher than 0.2