About OlivePrestige

The idea came out of frustration rather than ambition. Buying genuinely fresh, well-made olive oil in the United States and Canada is harder than it should be. The category is vast, the labelling rules permit a great deal of vagueness, and the single most useful fact about any bottle — the date the fruit was picked — is usually absent.

We started by importing three pallets for ourselves and a handful of restaurants in Brooklyn and Montréal. The oils sold out in five weeks, mostly to people who came back for a second bottle within the month. That repeat rate is still the metric we manage the business by.

We travel during harvest, not during trade fairs. Between early October and mid-December our sourcing team is in Messenia, Puglia, Jaén and the Vallée des Baux, tasting from tanks rather than from sample bottles prepared for buyers.

When we commit, we buy a defined lot: a single tank, a single harvest window, a single estate. We do not blend across producers and we never top up a listing with a later batch. When the lot is gone, the page changes.

Every lot is analysed by an independent laboratory for free acidity, peroxide value, K232 and K270, and total phenolic content. If a producer's own analysis is older than three months at bottling, we pay to have it repeated.

Before a lot is listed, it is tasted blind in cobalt glasses by four people, at least one of whom holds IOC panel training. We score fruitiness, bitterness and pungency, and we screen for the five classic defects: fusty, musty, winey, muddy and rancid.

A single detected defect ends the conversation, regardless of price or reputation. We have declined lots from estates we admire, and we have said so to their faces.

We do not sell oil without a harvest date. We do not use the phrase 'cold pressed' where the oil was in fact centrifuged, which is almost always. We do not make health claims beyond what the FDA qualified health claim allows, and we do not use the word 'artisanal' as a substitute for information.

We also do not discount fine oil to move stock. If a lot is not selling, the honest answer is that we bought too much, not that the oil has suddenly become worth less.

Orders leave our Brooklyn warehouse within one business day and reach the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic the next day. The Midwest and the South take two to three days, the West Coast three to four, and Canada three to six with customs cleared in advance.

Prices are shown in US dollars. Sales tax is calculated at checkout where applicable. Canadian orders ship delivered-duty-paid, so no broker fees or duties are collected at the door.