Silver Quality Award · London IOOC 2026
Most olive oil isn’t what it claims to be.
Not deliberately, but quietly. A vague origin. A blend of four countries. A harvest date buried in fine print, or missing altogether. The oil waits in a warehouse, then on a shelf, then in your pantry. By the time it reaches your table, most of what made it good is gone.
No one mentions it. The label looks perfectly respectable.
I grew up knowing how real olive oil should taste.
In Chile it was simply part of the table. Golden and grassy, with a bite at the back of the throat that told you it was fresh. It came from someone’s land, not a supply chain. I thought nothing of it then. It was just normal.
For ten years I taught skiing, from Vail to Portillo in the Andes. What I learned there was not skiing. It was how to make someone a guest, how the mountain and the people and the care behind it all become one thing you never forget. That is what I want SOLO to be. Not a bottle you buy, but a table you are invited to. When you open one, you are a guest in our groves.
Years later, in the United States, I went looking for it again and could not find it. What I found were soft, buttery oils in dark bottles with nothing traceable behind them. I began reading about why, and the more I learned, the harder it became to look away.
The industry had been built around volume and shelf life. Freshness, flavor and nutrition were inconvenient to that model, so they were quietly sacrificed. Most people have never tasted real olive oil. They just don’t know it yet.
Around that time, my friend Stijn was in Italy, working the land himself.
Not visiting. Learning the harvest. What early-picked fruit does to flavor, what cold extraction means when you are standing beside the mill, and which producers care and which do not.
When we reconnected, the idea was obvious. Find the growers who do it properly, and go straight from their harvest to your table. No blending. No middlemen. No waiting in a warehouse for demand to catch up.
We called it SOLO, from solus, meaning one. One grove. One producer. One pressing a year.
We sent that first harvest to the London International Olive Oil Competition, mostly to find out where we stood. It is judged blind. No labels, no brand, no origin, just the oil in the glass. We went up against producers from Italy, Spain and Greece with decades behind them, and came back with a Silver Quality Award. Our first year, our first pressing.
This is only the beginning. SOLO is growing into a small, deliberate collection of single estates, each with its own grove, its own hands, its own harvest. Those who join us now are the first at the table, and they will be here for everything that follows.
The people behind the harvest: meet Stijn and meet Jury →
The Standard
Five decisions, each made the harder way.
We tend two groves in Umbria, and every bottle is traced to just one. See the two groves and the two oils they make →
Single Origin
One estate at a time. We never blend across regions, countries, or even groves. Every bottle answers to a single place and a single harvest.
Early Harvest
We pick green, before full ripeness, when the fruit is richest in polyphenols and the flavor still has its edge. It yields far less oil per olive. We accept that.
Without Delay
Picked and milled within hours, while the fruit is still cold from the morning. Bottled at the source. Nothing waits in a warehouse for demand to catch up.
Once a Year
The grove decides, not the inventory. One pressing a year, and when it is gone we wait with everyone else. There is no second batch.
Full Transparency
The grower. The grove. The date it was pressed. The lab results. We publish all of it, because none of it needs hiding.
Nothing In Between
You know when a bottle of SOLO was pressed.
You know who made it and where it came from.
If you want, you can go there.
Most olive oil reaches you through brokers, blenders and bottlers. No one in that chain has ever met the person who grew the fruit.
I know Stijn. I know Jury. I talk to them through the year, not only at harvest. I go out in the spring to fertilize, and I am there in October to pick the fruit myself. From their grove to your table, that is the whole chain. There is no one in between.
If you’ve never had fresh olive oil before, you’ll notice it immediately.
If you have, you already know why this matters.
We are not trying to build the biggest olive oil brand. We are trying to make the most honest one. Oil from a real place, made by people we know, with everything that makes it worth having left intact.
Ricardo, SOLO EVOO
At Other Tables
“So smooth and well-balanced that I sometimes enjoy a teaspoon on its own straight from the bottle.”
Josh Smith
“I feel like I’ve stumbled on to a little Italian secret for how olive oil is supposed to taste.”
Michael Hyatt
“It always starts a conversation when we serve it to guests.”
Dan Keenan
“Truly feels like a little piece of Italy in every drop. Smooth, flavorful, and versatile enough to elevate salads, pasta, dips, or even a simple slice of bread.”
Kimberly and Mark
“Luxurious smoothness with a peppery finish. What a fabulous journey for this responsible company.”
Robin Barnes
2026 Harvest
A place at the table is waiting.
The trees are in fruit now. In October they will be picked, pressed within hours, and sent north. Reserve before the pressing, and your bottles will be among the first to leave the grove.