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Historians don’t agree about the origin of the name of Olite. It seems clear that the first settlement was Roman and that the village was used as a walled defensive village. They also agree to state that the foundation of Olite was due to the Goth king Suintila and that Saint Isidoro documented this town as “Oligitum” or “Ologitum”. The “-etum” suffix implies abundance of arboreous or vegetable species.
In the same way, the connection of Olite with the oil was done by the anthropologist Julio Caro Baroja pointing out that the name “Olite” could be a mozarabic term related to “olea” or “oleagina” (both words are translated as olive tree). It isn’t a coincidence either to appear an olive sinople tree (green colour in heraldry) in the central part of the Olite’s coat of arms.
Be that as it may, the clear fact is that Olite is a land of olive trees. In fact, both the olive tree and the grapevine share grounds with similar features to grow, although the care is different, and they are basic products in the Mediterranean gastronomic culture.
Going deeply into our research and development spirit, in the year 2004 in Bodegas Ochoa we undertook a new R & D project with a clear aim: making a high quality extra virgin olive oil with the distinctive touch of the Navarre’s middle area climatology.
Nowadays, our El Bosque estate holds 12 hectares of olive trees of the arbequina variety and from their fruits we get our high-end extra virgin olive oil. This oil, which comes from the first cold extraction, accompanies perfectly fresh or cooked vegetables, fish and barbecued meat.
Our 20.000 olive trees belong to the known as “New Olive culture”, based on the intensification and on the mechanization. These olive trees are small and suitable for the super-intensive growing. Thus, we pick the olives using the same machinery that we use for the vineyard and we produce our oil through the cold extraction, keeping in this way untouched its biological features.
Qualities of the virgin olive oil.
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