New Year Brings Changes

Welcome to 2012. Here at Il Fiorello Olive Oil Company, we are pushing into the new year with great goals. We will continue to share what we know about extra virgin olive oil and part of that education will come with our cooking classes. (If you want to be notified about the classes, please email us at [email protected]). We have put together a range of classes that will be fun, informative and loaded with culinary creativity.

Our balsamic reductions were a big hit in 2011, so we will continue to create them with fresh fruit and Ann’s magic in the kitchen. Right now we have fig, winter fruit (which has pomegranate and roasted blood orange), roasted blood orange, fig-lemon, and our signature.

We ended 2011 and started the new year working the mill. We made some beautiful olive oils and have some surprises for 2012. Il Fiorello will unveil a new line of flavored oils. Stay tuned!

Though 2011 was a down year as far as olive production (we had about 20 percent of last year’s crop), we created great oil. We knew it would be an off year because olive trees “rest” every other year and production decreases. But strange weather during blooming time hurt the olive crop throughout California as it did the wine grape crop.

We milled our high-quality olives in our new state-of-the-art Pieralisi mill that can turn 6,000 pounds of olives per hour into oil. It was beautiful to see. Folks from throughout Northern California brought their olives for custom milling, and we had a good time on community milling day and turned out a nice field-blend oil.

The year was good when it came to awards for our extra virgin olive oils. Our Pendolino brought in a gold medal each from the Napa County Fair, the California Olive Oil Council competition, the Yolo County Fair and the Los Angeles International competition. Our Frantoio won Best of Show at the Yolo County Fair, gold at Napa and silver in the Los Angeles competition. Leccino won silver at Napa, gold at Yolo, and silver at Los Angeles. Our Mission blend took silver at Napa, gold at Yolo, and bronze in L.A.

Il Fiorello opened our retail room this summer where we sell one-of-a-kind gifts and artisan goods in addition to our oils and balsamic reductions. They make great birthday gifts.

We were especially busy during the holiday season and look forward to a steady stream of visitors in 2012!

Folks took advantage of our facility to celebrate a birthday and corporate events. For more information on renting the facility for a wedding, birthday or corporate meetings, please call us at (707) 864-1529.

Our hours are changing for 2012 and we have set times for tours. We will be open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday through Monday. Tuesday through Friday, we will open from noon to 5 p.m.

Tours will be held Saturday-Monday at noon., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Costs for tours and tastings are $5 each. The cost then may be used toward the purchase of oil or our balsamic vinegar reductions. Private tours may be scheduled by calling us or sending an email.