Simunovich Olive Oil- 02.03.07
I would buy this olive oil based on packaging alone… and then hope its nearly as good as the graphic design. Something about the mix of bold powerful fonts mixed with wax seals and cork stoppers with traditional crests that just grabs me. “The Simunovich Olive Estate, a privately owned olive plantation in New Zealand produces premium quality extra virgin olive oil and an extensive range of olive oil skincare & beauty products.” I also love their story about the origin of olive oil (more below…)
~ from Wallpaper!
Excerpt from the Simunovich Site:
We have to travel back almost 6000 years to begin the journey of the Mediterranean olive. Originally, the olive was a wild tree, growing naturally in the stony grounds of Persia, which today is known as Iran, Palestine and Syria. Many believed the tree was a gift from the gods, a heaven sent fruit that yielded an oil of mythical standing.
From here, the Greeks took the olive as their own, cultivating it in the windswept lands that bordered the Aegean and Mediterranean and creating more efficient and successful processes for extracting the oil. The term ‘virgin’ olive oil related to the fact that only virgin girls were permitted to cultivate the fruit. (Today the term refers to acidity levels in the oil, but we love the romanticism of this ancient reference!)
Fortunately for us, the Greeks weren’t selfish with their newfound knowledge and soon they had shared their skills across Southern Europe. In Spain, methods for grafting were discovered and this resulted in bigger fruit with higher oil content. It was the beginning of a true love affair with the medicinal and therapeutic powers of the olive and today that continues in New Zealand at the Simunovich Olive Estate, where our trees have matured in just six short years – five times faster than our European counterparts. Kiwi magic? Great location? We like to think it’s a little bit of both.
