We do not farm the Taronco according to organic certification standards. We farm it according to our own conscience, which in practice means the same thing — and sometimes goes further. Every decision about how we manage the soil, the grass, the trees and the wider field is made with the long-term health of the land in mind, not short-term yield.
Organic certification is a process that takes time and money — neither of which changes how we actually farm. We use no synthetic pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilisers. We never have. We mention this not to dismiss certification, which serves a genuine purpose, but to be honest: the absence of a logo on our label does not mean the absence of organic practice. It means we chose to spend that money on the quality of the press instead.
The Taronco has never been treated with synthetic pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilisers. The olive trees here are managed entirely through physical and biological means — pruning, natural feeding, and allowing the ecosystem of the field to do the work that chemicals would otherwise do. This is not a recent conversion or a marketing position. It is simply how this land has always been managed.
Once a year, we spread cow and horse manure around the base of each of the 288 trees. It is slow, labour-intensive work — and the most effective, natural way to return nutrients to the soil. The manure feeds the microbiome beneath the trees, improves soil structure over time, and builds the kind of long-term fertility that synthetic fertilisers deplete rather than build. It also smells considerably worse for a few days, which is a reasonable price to pay.
For decades, the conventional wisdom in olive growing was to plough the earth between trees — clearing competing vegetation to give the olives unfettered access to soil nutrients. That wisdom has since been thoroughly challenged by modern agricultural research, and we never followed it in the first place.
We deliberately encourage grass and low vegetation to grow between the trees throughout the year. It is kept in check not by machinery or herbicide but by occasional sheep grazing — a form of land management that is genuinely ancient in Istria, and genuinely effective. The benefits are well documented: a living vegetation layer dramatically improves the soil's ability to retain moisture during the dry summer months, reduces erosion, supports soil biology, and creates habitat for the insects and organisms that keep the ecosystem in balance. The trees are not competing with the grass. They are part of the same system.
Multiple peer-reviewed studies now confirm that biodiversity between olive rows improves overall tree health, fruit quality and long-term soil fertility — the opposite of what the ploughing orthodoxy assumed.
The edges of the Taronco — the land immediately inside and around the ancient dry stone walls — are left entirely unmanaged. Wildflowers, grasses and native plants grow freely along the field boundaries, providing habitat for pollinators and beneficial insects, and creating the kind of transitional ecological zone that intensively managed land destroys. The walls themselves, built without mortar over centuries, support their own microhabitats in the gaps between the stones. The Taronco is enclosed not just physically but ecologically — a contained, self-supporting system.
The pressing of olives produces more than oil. The remaining pulp — known as pomace — contains water, skin, pulp fibre and the olive stone. At most small facilities, this becomes waste. At the Chiavalon press, where we bring our harvest, it becomes something else entirely.
Organic fertiliser, closing the loop between press and grove.
Separated from the pulp and burned as a clean, local energy source — the olive equivalent of wood pellets.
The oil-soaked cellulose filters from the press become natural firelighters for barbecues and fireplaces.
Where we take the harvest — and why the press matters as much as the field.
The Chiavalon press →