It is incredible to me that anyone ever figured out what to do with olives. The trees are beautiful—sturdy, gnarled trunks that branch out with slender, silvery leaves and they bear the small, hard olive fruit. The fruit starts out green and then turns a deep, purple-black color.

If you pick an olive to eat it straight from the tree, you immediately want to spit it out—it’s very bitter, even when perfectly ripe. Somewhere down the line, people discovered that you could extract a rich oil from the fruit and also cure it in brine to make them edible. It takes a lot of work but the flavors coaxed out of this bitter fruit are subtle and complex. Olive trees thrive in the same environmental conditions as some of the great wines of the world and those elements are also what gives olive oil its complex flavors.

Usually olives are ready for harvesting in late autumn. In this part of Tuscany the harvest takes place in late October to around the second week of November. In the past, the olives were picked by hand (and in some places still are) but now many farms use a little rake-like machine that vibrates rapidly to comb out the ripe olives. The workers spread some burlap sheets under the trees to catch the fruit as it falls to the ground. The rakes do a very good job of extracting the olives from the branches without harming the tree.

Once collected, the olives are taken to the pressing facility where they are washed very well and separated from the leaves. They go through a machine that cuts the fruit so that when the pressing begins, the oil will come out easily. These machines work fast and at a certain temperature so that little damage is done to the fruit before the oil is extracted. Then, the olives go into a big tank room where the oil is pressed out and then sent through filters and on to the holding tanks.

In between the pressing and filtration it is possible to taste the oil. The unfiltered olive oil is very fresh and bright and you can really get a glimpse into what the oil might taste like at the end. Once filtered and put into tanks (according to batches), the tasting of each oil begins. This part is very similar to the process of tasting and blending wine. The oils at this point are clear, bright green in color and I was stunned by the difference between the unfiltered oil and the filtered. The result is a very round, clean flavor that makes it possible to really understand the complex flavor profiles.

While these individual oils are each very good, the process goes on to blending. That means that each oil is tasted and then blended by a master to get the very best flavor for bottling that year. While there is a lot of science behind this process, Filippo Mazzei, who owns the label, explains that there is also an important “human side and analysis doesn’t help you—it is all about tasting and personality”. I totally agree and witnessing the job of making the oil has changed the way I will taste olive oil forever.