About our Farm
The varieties on the main grove are definitely not common for the centre of Portugal and some not even native. The first years we were a little ashamed of it as we are promoters of native Portuguese produce. But the plantation has a story of our family and that is definitely something to be proud of.
After many years of hard work in the restaurant industry the Passos family wished to have a little house in their village of origin. They fell in love with a watermill ruin in Atadoinha. With some luck in the '80ties they bought the ruin and over the years slowly renovated it into a holiday home. It was in 2000 when they focussed on the lands outside and most of the farmers around advised to plant olive trees. With being close to the Spanish borders in the Algarve they took the knowledge and olive trees back from the south to here. A grove with Picual, Arbequina, Manzanilla & Gordal was born.
When we started full time management of the groves we grafted the Manzanilla variety as it gave many problems like ripening early and attracting lots of olive flies. We also managed to buy some other small groves with native variety Galega that started producing as well. We definitely didn't want to dig out what has been doing well after 20 years. And more important, Galega has an alternate bearing so being able to survive of olive oil sales we also need production in the lower yielding years of Galega.
It is now 2022 and we have made big steps but also faced many challenges. Floods, fires, storms & a pandemic have changed our outlook on everything. We try to set the right example and do the works in an (non certified) organic & natural way. The quality is getting higher by the years but the amount of olive oil needs to grow to make our farm financially sustainable.
As we don't own lot of land and the Condeixa community is not much interested in its agricultural heritage, agriculture is disappearing rapidly. There were once 41 olive mills in the area and now there are none running left. By putting our brand on the international map, working together with owners of traditional groves to take over their grove management and increasing our produce in other areas we hopefully be able to put the region back on the olive map.
We welcome you to visit and see for yourself how we work.