Zakros · Sitia · Crete
Nikolaos’ grandfather planted the trees. We pick them by hand every November and mill them the same day.
Who we are
Nikolaos Semertzakis grew up here. His grandfather Niko planted most of the trees and worked them his whole life.
Diana Dobîja came from Romania and learned the grove from him. The two of them run it. Pruning starts in January. Harvest is November, and for those weeks nothing else happens.
No employees, no bought-in fruit. What you pour came off these trees this season.
The grove
The grove is on the Zakros plateau in Sitia, inside the UNESCO Sitia Geopark. Nights stay cool at that height, so the fruit ripens slowly. The soil is thin and stony. Yield per tree is low.
We leave it that way. Slow-ripening fruit is what gives the oil its polyphenols and its pepper.
Zakros, Sitia, Lasithi
From tree to bottle
From early November, tree by tree. Nothing is shaken or raked, so the fruit is not bruised.
The morning’s pick is at the mill by afternoon. Acidity rises with every hour in between.
Below 27 °C. Heat raises the yield and drives off the aromatics.
Into tinted glass and tins the same day. Light ages oil faster than time does.
This year’s harvest
No reserve bottling, no second grade. The 250 ml bottle and the 5 litre tin hold the same oil.
My grandfather never sold a bottle with his name on it. He would have wanted to know what it tasted like. Nikolaos Semertzakis
Questions
Free acidity measures how far the oil has broken down. Extra virgin is allowed up to 0.8%. Ours is 0.2%. That comes from hand-picked fruit milled the same day instead of sitting in crates for a week.
Across the European Union. Orders leave from Crete or from our stock in Frankfurt, whichever is closer. One to three days in Germany and Greece, two to six elsewhere.
Cool, dark, sealed. Heat and light age oil faster than time does, so keep it off the shelf above the hob. Use it within about eighteen months. Decant a tin into a smaller bottle for daily use.
The Cretan olive. Small fruit, low yield, high in polyphenols. It is why the oil tastes of green almond and cut grass, with a pepper at the back of the throat.
Yes, to restaurants and shops across the EU. Tell us roughly what volume you need and where you are.
Get in touch
Nikolaos and Diana answer their own email. Usually within a day, longer through the November harvest.
Write to us