O-Med Picual Olive Oil from Granada, an extra virgin with a highly complex flavor and aroma. It stands out for its intense fruitiness of green olives with notes of tomato, alloza, banana, apple, and aromatic herbs. A balanced EVOO of medium fluidity, with a persistent palate of artichoke, olive leaf, and green walnut. Ideal for meats, tomato salads, salmorejo, and pastries, a true culinary pleasure.
Through meticulous care in cultivation and production, O-Med has made a name for itself worldwide. Its first-class olive oil is produced in an environmentally friendly way.
Although O-Med has only existed in its current form under the management of siblings Paola and Juan de Dios García since 2005, the young company can look back on a long family tradition in olive oil. Therefore, it is not surprising that the small family business receives national and international awards every year.
It's not just the wealth of experience passed down from their father that contributes to O-Med's aromatic, first-class extra virgin olive oils. The accuracy with which the olive oil production is carried out and the prime location of the olive grove also have a positive impact on the oil's quality. O-Med is located in sun-drenched Andalusia. In Ácula (Ventas de Huelma), about 30 kilometers from Granada, the olive trees can expect around 2880 hours of sunshine annually.
The de Dios García siblings work tirelessly on the quality of their unique extra virgin olive oils. In addition to the warmth of the sun, the olive tree needs sufficient water for its fruit to thrive. To ensure the olive grove is not dependent on the rare rainfall during the hot summer months, O-Med has installed a sophisticated underground irrigation system.
Fed by the snow-covered mountains of the nearby Sierra Nevada, O-Med's olive trees always receive enough water to guarantee a high-quality olive harvest. While the groves of other olive farmers who rely on rain often suffer from drought stress in sunny years, the trees at O-Med thrive optimally. Off-flavors or crop failures are foreign concepts at O-Med. On the contrary, both the Picual and Arbequina olive oils impress with top quality every year.
Because quality always comes first at O-Med, the olives are harvested as early as possible. While this results in the first-class extra virgin olive oil containing many phenols, thus being classified as beneficial to health, the yield is limited. The riper the olives are at the time of harvest, the more oil can be pressed from them.
At O-Med, harvesting takes place as early as October. Through consistent monitoring of the trees, the ideal time, just as the fruits begin to change color, can be precisely determined. Then, workers gently remove the olives from the trees with harvesting machines and transport them quickly to the mill.
Because it's not just oxygen that affects the picked olives, but also heat, O-Med's olive harvest takes place during the cool hours of the night. Subsequently, the production process is also coordinated to ensure that the temperature never exceeds 20 degrees Celsius. This is the only way to preserve all the healthy active ingredients and the wonderfully diverse aromas of the olive in the oil.
Unfortunately, the top quality of olive oil is associated with a high technical effort in the oil mill. To produce a top-quality oil, many olive oil farmers accept high energy consumption, which comes at the expense of the environment. Not so with O-Med. Of course, the Garcia siblings cannot do without modern technology either. However, they rely on solar energy for their power supply.
Additionally, the olive pits, which are a byproduct of pressing, are used for energy generation, so O-Med olive oils are created through environmentally friendly production. But that's not all. Sustainability is also a top priority in packaging. Therefore, O-Med exclusively uses recyclable glass, and the cardboard boxes can also be recycled.
However, this does not mean you have to forgo an attractive olive oil bottle when purchasing the high-quality extra virgin olive oil. Quite the contrary: in both the design gallery "Packaging of the world" and "the dieline," the white glass bottles with the olive tree are listed among the most creative and interesting packagings.
From Australia to the United States, O-Med's high-quality extra virgin olive oil is present in more than 40 countries around the world, as the family business exports 95 percent of its production. However, the first-class top oil is also popular and highly valued in Spain itself. It was awarded the "Premio Alimentos de España," an important and prestigious prize given by the Spanish Ministry, in both 2016 and 2017.
O-Med is also pleased to have received the following international recognition, among others:
