Our Story

THE FROST - 1985

Sornanino olive oil began, in many ways, with loss.

In the winter of 1985, a devastating frost swept through Tuscany and killed vast numbers of olive trees across the region. Ancient groves were destroyed overnight. Hillsides that had produced oil for generations were left grey, split and silent.

At Sornanino, in the hills of Castellina-in-Chianti, our family began again.

Skilled dry-stone wall builders repaired the terraces. We cut the damaged trees back to the stump. We planted new olive trees slowly across the hillside, overlooking the Chianti valleys. What exists today grew from those years of rebuilding.

I came of age during this process.

LEARNING THE CRAFT

As a teenager, I learned olive harvesting and oil-making alongside the older contadini who still carried the agricultural traditions of Chianti: men like Nello, Livio and Uncle Ricco. We "milked" the olives into buckets tied around our bodies. We carried heavy olive-wood ladders between the trees, collected olives into sacks rather than crates, spread nets beneath the branches in the cold autumn light.

The old milling process was completely different from today — slower, rougher, messier, more physical. Over the decades I have watched Tuscan olive oil production transform from traditional pressing into the precise modern cold-extraction systems we now use to protect freshness, flavour and polyphenol content.

But some things have never changed: calling time to start the harvest, the dependence on weather, the judgement of ripeness, the long days, the attention to flavour, and the belief that exceptional olive oil is born in the grove itself.

FARMING PHILOSOPHY

Sornanino is farmed traditionally and organically — no herbicides, no intensive industrial methods, no shortcuts in the grove.

We are part of the Chianti Classico IGP production zone and farm to those standards. We have chosen not to pursue formal organic or IGP certification. As a very small producer, our energy goes into the oil, the trees, and the people we sell to — not into administrative overhead designed for operations far larger than ours.

The quality is in the fruit. The fruit is in the farming. That has always been enough.

THE HARVEST TODAY

Today, Sornanino remains deliberately small-scale.

We harvest our 430 trees early each October, while the olives are still vibrant green, producing an intensely fresh, peppery, herbaceous oil — the hallmark of exceptional early-harvest Tuscan EVOO. A small crew of family and friends picks by hand, and I press at our local mill in Chianti.

What began as a deeply local agricultural project has developed an international reputation for quality — Platinum at the Berlin Global Olive Oil Awards, consecutive Great Taste Awards, and recognition in global EVOO rankings.

Yet the essential scale and spirit of the work remain unchanged.

The harvest is still seasonal, weather-dependent and limited. We still sell directly, through personal relationships and returning customers who wait each year for the new pressing.

Sornanino is not industrial olive oil.

It is the product of a particular hillside, particular trees, accumulated knowledge across generations, and the ongoing work of people whose hands still touch every stage of the harvest.

RECOGNITION

For many years, Sornanino oil was made for family, friends, and a quiet circle of loyal customers who returned each harvest without any encouragement beyond the oil itself.

We entered international competition only recently, after a Tuscan friend shared our oil with a local olive oil sommelier — someone who had tasted the oils of this region across many years and many harvests. His response was unequivocal. He told us to submit it for judging.

What followed surprised us.

The October 2023 oil won a Great Taste Award and a Silver Medal at the London International Olive Oil Competition in 2024. The tasting notes were unmistakably our oil — the same grassy, peppery, artichoke-forward character our customers had been describing for years, now confirmed by judges who had never heard of us.

The October 2024 oil went further: a second Great Taste Award, and a Platinum Medal at the Berlin Global Olive Oil Awards — scoring 96/100 across all tasting criteria.

Some of the recognition that means most, though, comes not from judges but from the mill.

We press at a highly respected Chianti mill run by the Gonelli family, using the most advanced cold-extraction technology in the region. Each October, as our fruit arrives, the mill workers comment on the condition of the olives — so carefully handled and clean from the grove that, as they tell us, they barely need washing. And when the fresh oil begins to come through: "You make a fantastic product."

From producers of that calibre, we take those words seriously.

— Serena Jenks

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"It was always the best. We were just lucky to know about it." — Jenny, long-standing customer, on hearing about the Platinum Award, 2026

"Well done — that is amazing. But we already knew how good it is." — Paul, customer since 2000

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