Colline di Santa Cruz Olio Nuovo

375 ml bottle - California

2012 Tasting Notes:
It might be the salty air that makes it great!

With dark olive green color, the oil is warm in feel to the lips, filling the mouth with a fullness of buttery oil that turns to an edge of bitter, and then a sharp burn at the top of the back of the throat. When it's all gone, the mouth feels a vapor-tingly refreshment like a good mint might leave.

Unlike some oils this time of year, and more like the person who creates the oil, Colline di Santa Cruz is very friendly with a strong sense of flavor. Not an oil that disappears from memory, it is an oil that participates in a dish.

For some this oil can have the fiery punch and burn you are looking for. For others, the burn is slight. It really is an oil that has personality, and shows its true self when used!

Limited supply.

2011 Tasting Notes:
Surviving another last minute weather storm of tremendous Santa Anna winds, the olives stayed on the trees to be harvested. The result is a very pronounced oil. With lots of character and flavor. Though it might not be for everyone, it is definitely an oil that has a good strong peppery finish. This years oil fills the mouth with a fullness that moves to a flavor of olives (yes, some oils don't even taste like the olives they come from.) Then the wait for three beats and the pepper kicks in.

2010 tasting notes:
These olives survived a very cold Thanksgiving, to then produce a great oil. Rich and green with nice grassy notes, and some peppery punch. Perfect on crusty toast with a little Italian salt, or on a simple winter green salad, or just dip in some rustic Italian bread. So easy and so good.

About le Colline de Santa Cruz:
Chris Banthien produces one of the finest olive oils on the planet. Chris' work began in 1996, when she purchased a 20-acre plot of land that the locals called "Zucchini Hill". After moving around 30,000 tons of earth and terracing the land, Chris purchased 700 olive trees from an established California olive producer, and imported another 900 trees from Italy. She brought in four Tuscan varietals - Frantoio, Ascolano, Leccino and Taggiasca - to get a particular taste in the oil. She preferred an Italian taste in olive oil, with their signature pungency in the back of the throat.

Chris says that the taste of the olive oil is heavily dependent on two things: the soil and the weather. Even the identical varietals can produce oils with very distinct flavors when grown in different places. As it turns out, the rich soil of the Santa Cruz foothills, combined with the almost constant wet, warm air from the ocean, creates an almost perfect mimic of some of the finest olive groves in Italy.