Naturvie in 4 different varieties

This product page is really a small olive oil tasting. Choose the soft Arbequina, rare Cornezuelo, remarkable Full Moon Club or powerful five-cultivar blend Spain in Love. Four oils that could hardly be more different.

Naturvie works in Extremadura and has a remarkable collection of olive cultivars at Finca El Hoyo. This allows the producer not only to create blends, but also to bottle individual cultivars separately.

That is exactly why we enjoy placing these four variants next to each other. Arbequina and Cornezuelo demonstrate how much difference a single olive cultivar can make. Full Moon Club and Spain in Love then show what happens when different varieties are deliberately brought together.

The 100% Arbequina is the most approachable of the four. Green-fruity, but above all soft and rounded. Think fruit salad, green apple, banana, grass, tomato plant and almond.

The sweet impression is much stronger than either bitterness or pepperiness. That makes this an excellent olive oil for anyone discovering good extra virgin olive oil without immediately looking for a powerful kick in the throat.

Beautiful with fruit, vegetables, fish, eggs, sauces and lighter dishes. A subtle oil that leaves room for the dish while still adding genuine flavour of its own.

For his restaurant at the Mandarin Oriental Conservatorium in Amsterdam, world-famous chef Yotam Ottolenghi chose this very Naturvie Arbequina.

We think that is a wonderful compliment for an oil that may look like the quietest of the four on paper. Its gentle fruitiness and lack of dominant bitterness make Arbequina particularly useful in a kitchen where vegetables, herbs and other ingredients need to remain the stars of the dish.

And yes, we are rather proud of that. The very same Arbequina used by Ottolenghi in Amsterdam is right here among the four Naturvie varieties.

Cornezuelo tells a very different story. The trees stand in an unusual old planting that was never laid out in neat geometric rows. The landscape feels much more like an irregular old olive forest.

The oil has medium to high green fruitiness with apple, green almond, green leaf, chlorophyll and tomato. Its pepperiness is more pronounced than its bitterness, giving it considerably more character than the Arbequina.

Beautiful with pasta and leaf salads, cooked vegetables, rice, carpaccio, charcuterie, fresh cheese, grilled fish and red meat.

Just before the first full moon of October, a group of friends, customers and Naturvie enthusiasts gather at Finca El Hoyo. The Full Moon Club heads into the olive grove to pick the first olives of the season together.

It is therefore more than simply production. Harvest becomes an annual ritual: picking together, walking among old and young trees and experiencing the new olive oil year literally from its first moment.

The oil is a blend of four olive cultivars whose composition can change from one harvest year to the next. That is part of the character of Full Moon. Each year, the oil is intended to express what the first harvest of that season has to offer.

The flavour profile is intense and complex, with green herbs, tomato plant, kiwi, green banana and citrus. Surprisingly soft and sweet on the palate, with green astringency followed by a fresh touch of green pepper.

The name really says exactly what Naturvie is trying to do here: create a bottle that brings together some of Spain's most characteristic olive cultivars.

Picual, Picuda, Arbequina, Cornezuelo and Hojiblanca are all grown at Finca El Hoyo. The individual varieties are milled separately so that their own aromas are preserved, and only then combined into the final blend.

The result is anything but soft. Spain in Love has high green fruitiness with notes of reed, artichoke, tomato plant and green pepper. On the palate it is powerful, with pronounced bitterness and pepperiness.

That makes it not only a fun gift because of its name and presentation, but above all a serious, powerful extra virgin olive oil for stews, strongly seasoned dishes, meat and other preparations that can handle an expressive oil.

Arbequina and Cornezuelo are single-cultivar olive oils: one olive variety completely determines the flavour profile. That makes them especially interesting when you want to learn what an individual cultivar can contribute by itself.

Full Moon Club and Spain in Love are blends. Here, the proportion of different cultivars determines the final result. A good blend is therefore not a compromise, but rather like composing different flavours into one harmonious whole.

Arbequina is now grown far beyond Spain and is loved for its approachable fruity character. Choose Naturvie Arbequina and you taste exactly the side of this cultivar that has made it so popular.