Have you ever wondered what determines the quality of an olive oil?

We often categorize a product as being high-quality or healthy, observing only the packaging and taste. However, beyond these aspects, there are other factors, perhaps less known, that have a strong impact on the quality of a food product. In the following 4 articles we will see why these 4 elements: soil, climate, olives and man, play an essential role when talking about the quality of an olive oil.

Olive production has an uninterrupted history of several millennia, which gave birth to a constantly evolving industry, while preserving the knowledge passed down from generation to generation. Due to geographical conditions, some of the main olive-producing countries are Greece, Turkey, Spain and Italy. Turkey produces more than 1.2 million metric tons of olives annually and exports both table olives and olive oil extracted from more than 500 factories in the country. But let’s talk about soil. It is important to have a look at the soil of our olive grove and understand its properties.

It is often argued that wines and olive oils are very similar. In both cases, the soil on which the olive or vine orchards were planted adds its unique mark to the final product. Just like, for wine, the soil dictates the aroma, color or level of tannin obtained; for olive oil, the soil also influences the level of polyphenols and other variables such as taste and subtle aromas.

At DARVARI GARDEN, both the name and the land behind it carry a special meaning. It all started when, during a pilgrimage to the Çanakkale area in ​​Turkey, Eugen Prundeanu and his son, Alexandru Prundeanu, embarked on a visit to the olive groves at the foot of Mount Ida. One of the plantations visited had belonged to their ancestors, the Darvari family, more than 100 years ago. They were marked by the discovery and felt that the story had to go on, so they decided to buy the ancestral plantation in order to continue the tradition that their family’s ancestors had started a century ago, thus giving birth to DARVARI GARDEN. So for us, everything started with soil, the land – a special place full of energy and rich in history that dates back hundreds of years.

Due to its geographical position, Canakkale has a rich history – this city stretches along the shores of the strait that separates Europe from Asia, connecting Thrace and Anatolia. It is also the original land of the Trojan Gardens, with olive groves stretching over thousands of acres and having populated the soils of Canakkale for thousands of years, making olive oil an essential ingredient in Mediterranean cuisine and and part of the day to day life of local families.

Our olive garden has a slightly alkaline soil, with a pH level of 7.54 – an optimal level for the production of a high quality olive oil. At the same time, the soil in Canakkale is very rich in calcium – which is an important element that provides strength and stability to the olives, and the potassium level of the plantation is low, which increases the production of olives. So, everything starts from the soil, from the root, and goes up to the fruit, which thus produces a high quality product. This means that the soil determines the quality of the olives which are subsequently transformed into a remarkable olive oil. So, before everything else we must touch the soil!