About Bondolio -California Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Bondolio Olive Grove
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About Bondolio

Our passion for Sicily, its culture, its foodways—and especially the olive oil—moved us to transform our 10-acre almond orchard into a traditional Sicilian olive grove.

As dedicated stewards of the land, we have always practiced sustainable farming methods and are gentle with our trees. Our estate-blend oil is certified organic and we are certified as an organic producer and processor, which means our mill doesn’t use any chemicals to extract the oil.

Bondolio’s Sicilian estate blend is an elegant and unique California extra virgin olive oil, milled onsite from Nocellara, Biancolilla, and Cerasuola olives. This flavor profile, while readily found in Southern Italy and Sicily, is quite rare among oils produced in California.

Our estate blend is critically acclaimed and is a three-time Good Food Award winner. Other repeat awards include Best of Show at the California State Fair, as well as numerous gold medals at the New York International Olive Oil Competition and other prestigious international olive oil competitions.

Our Mandarin Orange Olive Oil has also earned a gold medal at the California State Fair and a Good Food Award.

Our Olives, Our Trees, Our Oils

Old World Tradition

Our trees trace their lineage to Mount Etna in Sicily, and we carefully tend our grove so these treasured olives can reveal their unique origin in Bondolio olive oil.

We are grateful to the farmers of the small family groves we met in Southern Italy and Sicily. They were so friendly and took great care in teaching us the Old World methods they use to grow happy, healthy trees.

Our embrace of traditional ways of planting and harvesting is unusual among California olive oil growers. The layout of the Bondolio olive grove reflects the spacing patterns and precision pruning methods of southern Italian groves, with more than 20 feet separation of trees and rows. These traditional methods give each tree full sun and air circulation, while discouraging pests that damage the olives.

Using knowledge that has been passed down through generations, we farm organically to preserve the true ancestry of these remarkable olive trees.

Olives are harvested by hand at just the right time to retain their complex, authentically Sicilian notes —what we call the “smile taste.”

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A Tale of Three Olives

Bondolio’s signature extra virgin olive is a harmonious blend of the fruity, fragrant, and grassy Nocellara, the bold and herbaceous Cerasuola, and the buttery Biancolilla olives. They have an ancestral lineage that can be traced to the Greeks who brought olive trees to Sicily over 2,000 years ago.

The consistently excellent quality of our oil is due in no small part to the Sicilian-like warm summers, semi-arid conditions, and rich soil of California’s San Joaquin Valley. Here also, the landscape is similar to Sicily’s, with flora of prickly pear cactus, palm trees, and eucalyptus. We like to believe Bondolio’s olive trees have found a comfortable, familiar home in the soil of Winters, California.

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Celebrating Olio Nuovo

During harvest time at Bondolio and in Southern Italy, we celebrate the first of the harvest with our olio nuovo, the new oil. As the olives change from their brightly colored green to a softer, less flashy shade with multi colors of rose, purple and black, we start harvesting.

We harvest by hand (rapidly becoming a lost art in California) when the olives are just right, and they go from tree to bottle in less than 90 minutes. Because the “new oil” has yet to settle down, the taste profile is fruity, buttery, and delightfully green and peppery on the palate. Each year we bottle a very limited amount of this seasonal gift.

Bottle of Bondolio Madrine Orange Olive Oil with bowl of ice cream, oranges, and sea salt on table

California Mandarin Orange Olive Oil

This oil is a happy experiment that quickly became a favorite. Winner of a Good Food award, our California Mandarin Orange Olive oil is a lovely friendship of candy-sweet mandarins oranges grown on a farm in the Sierra foothills, and the Pendolino olives used as a pollinator for Bondolio’s signature Sicilian estate blend.

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A deeper look into the Bondolio Origin Story

A passion project for Malcolm Bond

Angel Flight West is a non-profit organization that provides medical & compassion flights for people in need. They even have an on-ground Earth Angel driving crew!

There is no cost to passengers, their families, or healthcare organizations. Ever.

Malcolm is one of 1,800 volunteer pilots who make these important journeys a possibility. Proceeds from Bondolio’s wood-fired pizza oven go to AFW and its mission of love.

Learn more www.angelflightwest.org.