Origin
The grove sits in the hills south of Kaina, a small village in Apokoronas, in the west of Crete. It is made of two old plots, long since worked as one, that still carry their Cretan field-names: Lakkoi and Kotsifalia. Names like these are older than any deed. They are how the land has been known for as long as anyone remembers.
It is high ground, around 226 metres, on a south-facing slope that looks toward the White Mountains. The sea is a long way off, more than seven kilometres north, so the air is dry and the nights are cool. Olive trees like this: elevation, light, and distance from the damp of the coast. It is a landscape of thriving groves and vineyards, quiet and a little remote.
An old place
Kaina is said to stand on the site of Kaino, an ancient town named in the old myths as the birthplace of Britomartis, a Cretan goddess of the mountains. Britomartis was worshipped on the island long before the rest of Greece had heard her name. Whether or not a goddess was born here, the point remains: people have lived and farmed this ground for a very, very long time.
The wider region wears that history openly. Apokoronas was resettled more than a thousand years ago, after Crete was won back from the Arabs. Venetian wells and Ottoman houses still stand in the nearby villages. At the monastery of Saint George, a few miles off from the grove, there is a traditional olive mill with twelve stone arches, the largest in Crete. This mill is still remembered for the oil it pressed, and serves as living memory that olive oil is far from a recent idea here.
The old tree
At the back of the grove stands one tree apart from the rest. Its trunk is around thirteen metres round at the base, wide enough that it takes several people to reach across. It has stood through all of the history above, and a great deal more before it.
It is tricky to be certain regarding the age of this tree. Olive trees hollow and renew as they age, so there are no rings to count. However, trees like this one are thought to be thousands of years old. It was here long before us, and it will be here long after. We prune it, we pick from it, and otherwise we leave it be.
Why it matters to the oil
None of this is decoration. The height, the light, the dry air, the old trees worked by hand and left largely to themselves, all of it ends up in the bottle. An oil tastes of the place it comes from, the same way a wine does. This is the place ELARIA comes from.
One grove, in the hills south of Kaina. Picked each November, and bottled once a year.
