2025 Harvest Notes
Vernalese
A Frantoio-led field blend shaped by more than a decade of grove stewardship.
What is in this bottle was made with intention, from a grove we have tended for more than a decade, in a season that asked a great deal of the land and gave back something worth holding. It is a field blend of Frantoio, Leccino, and Moraiolo, guided toward the truest expression of what Vernalese held this year. We are not working toward a formula. We are working toward the best the grove has to offer, and no two harvests will ever give us the same answer.
The Season
Winter into Spring
The coldest December since 2017 reset the vegetative cycle across the groves. Heavy spring rainfall replenished soil moisture in these non-irrigated hillsides, but slowed pollination and early fruit set.
Summer
June and July brought heat that stressed the trees and reduced fruit counts. Rain followed, easing drought pressure but increasing exposure to fungal risk. This was a season that asked us to stay close.
Autumn
Day and night temperatures swung nearly 20 degrees during harvest weeks. That variation is what drives phenolic development and preserves aromatic structure. We harvested under cool, overcast skies: the conditions that allow for careful, controlled extraction. Yield came in at 15.26%, higher than the previous season despite the reduced fruit counts.
The Oil
Vernalese is Frantoio-led, with Leccino and Moraiolo shaping its balance and depth. In 2025, the grove gave us an oil that is firm, composed, and clear.
The aromatics open on artichoke, green almond, and fresh-cut grass. On the palate, artichoke returns alongside almond and bitter greens, with a bitterness and pungency that are integrated and steady. The finish is long. This is an oil with structure, one that holds its own alongside food with depth: grilled white meats, grilled shrimp, a hearty soup that has been on since morning.
The Care
Harvest ran from October 16 to 20. Olives were milled within hours of leaving the trees, in a nitrogen-sealed mill with temperatures held below 22 degrees. The oil was double-filtered, laboratory tested, and stored in stainless steel tanks under nitrogen at 17 degrees.
Through the season, olive fly pressure was monitored weekly by hand across every subsection of the grove. No practices were used to stimulate growth or increase yield. Pruned material returned to the grove floor. The grove set the pace. We followed it.
2025
The Record
Vernalese
56% Frantoio, 35% Leccino, 9% Moraiolo
Fruitiness
5.8/10
Bitterness
5.6/10
Pepperiness
5.7/10
Polyphenols
571 mg/kg
Free Fatty Acids
0.23%
Peroxides
7.2
Monounsaturated FA
>75%
Pesticide Residues
Not detected