Special Announcement: Our very first EVOO offering!!!

Dear Operatives… we present you one more check off the Wine Spies bucket list today, the best extra virgin olive oil money can buy at a fraction of its cost.

The search for a momentous first like this was not easy. Do we look at Italians that are attached to top wineries? Do we search in our neck of the woods for that? Alas, it was a local farmer’s market encounter one fateful summer day where we discovered Olive Truck.

You know how much we love entrepreneurship around here, and brave ones who think outside the box. Olive Truck is such an innovative idea that it’s unfathomable no one else thought of it before Sam.

Basically, seriously pampered olives destined for EVOO, like fine wine grapes, are fickle to grow and very fragile to handle before they are pressed to make the good stuff. So instead of hauling olives across the state for miles on end, Olive Truck is a boutique mobile milling concept that travels to where the groves are, instead of having the olives travel to facilities far, far away, to press, and bottle Extra Virgin Olive Oil right at the source, assuring zero attrition to the quality and sense of place along the way.

Like NO OTHER EVOO that we know gets picked and pressed within the same hour!!!

Wine Enthusiast recently wrote that “From an agricultural perspective, it makes sense that many of the world’s most venerable wine regions also make top-quality olive oil… producers often treat it with the same respect for terroir and process as fine wine.”

So, California is a paradise for great olives, and Olive Truck knows that. This is why they focus on single-origin and varietal oils that express their character and terroir best. This is why they have won all the competitions there are to judge this niche gourmet delicacy. In fact, California is unique, similar to wine, in having more than 75 commercially crucial varieties of fine EVOO growing under its dependable sun to make oils that continue to garner international acclaim.

This 2023 Frantoio is, we thought, the one that shows the best today in Olive Truck’s colorful portfolio of cultivars and blends. The grove is in Vernalis, CA just east of Livermore wine country while Frantoio itself originates from Tuscany, Italy as a cherished variety for the robust, fruity oils it yields. It’s a “healthy treat” kinda olive oil for drizzling or dipping, rather than for everyday use or cooking. Enjoy it best with a fresh loaf of your favorite bread, or a Caprese with the first heirloom tomatoes ripening soon.

Mind you this half-liter glass bottle is a LOT of oil for the money, especially at this best price you’ll find it anywhere, direct or at fine food purveyors, always highly limited.