It took a radical and sophisticated pursuit of excellence, such as that cultivated inside Byzantine or Ottoman courts, to reach unprecedented levels of refinement.

It may seem paradoxical, but for the guild, even multimillenary, historical experience does not necessarily mean excellence. Carpet weavers or winemakers, builders or blacksmiths, could have spent generations without making the transition from craft to art, if they had not met special people who would value, nurture and reward such effort.

„For connoisseurs” becomes an expression that seems to have lost its meaning nowadays, in which prices dictate market trends, and „exceptional” has been replaced, in turn, by „very good”, „quite good” or even „good enough”.

All in all, in just a few generations of consumerism, during which producers were no longer encouraged to exceed their condition but only to reduce prices and increase the volume of production, compromise became a common way to overcome the difficulties of the profession.

But there is a kind of memory of excellence, which persists in the DNA of the guild or even the place. In Çanakkale, in the orchards of DARVARI GARDEN, in the fields of Mecidiyeköy, olive trees, some more than a century old, are a kind of direct inheritance passed down from the west of the Ottoman Empire.

Equally uplifting are the memories passed down from generation to generation about how things are done with reason, in the family of one of our farmers, Engin. His grandfather, for example, learned the craft of wood-butter at a time when our olive trees were growing roots. On such a blessed land, because here the earth nourishes the olive tree and the weather protects it from trials, it is much easier to discover that, indeed, man sanctifies the place.

Modern man often has the opportunity to consume, at least apparently, in ways that recall and even exceed the opulence once reserved for royal courts. On all-inclusive vacations or on well-targeted visits to Michelin-starred restaurants, you can eat royal, depending on what you mean by that.

On the other hand, more and more often, the raw, authentic products, which today we call „organic”, replace in the contemporary choice the most dishes that were most appreciated a few decades ago. The rigors of the industry and the trends in the tastes of today are synchronized in international competitions where judges notice and award – in the world of extra virgin olive oils included – the most successful products from around the world.

Although it was launched only two years ago, DARVARI GARDEN has already won several important awards for quality at such meetings. Before everything else, this required discovering the best chemistry behind a team, behind a family, working together for the success we build together. For us. For you.

The team associated with the production of DARVARI GARDEN table oil and olives has the privilege of working with an exceptional raw material: top quality people, who met in a providential way in our projects, DARVARI Ottoman or Byzantium by DARVARI, and they understood that in front of them was an extraordinary opportunity to search together for a unique, special recipe that could bring craft or art science closer together.

Our colleague, Osman, for example, is a dedicated professor of agricultural engineering and has a thorough knowledge of both olive cultivation and modern technologies for monitoring and exploiting them. Well, beyond this area of science, Osman’s search meets with the enthusiasm of turning the right solutions into processes that lead to excellence: an extra virgin oil that both the world’s juries and his colleague Engin, appreciate for its texture, taste, uniqueness.

Sometimes a medal won at an international competition is easier to obtain than an admiring look and a handshake from a local farmer who tastes your oil.

This is also because, as said, before there is still a kind of memory of excellence which persists in the DNA of the guild. And of the place.