Discovering Award-Winning Olive Oil in Brazil's Southern Highlands

Nestled in the heart of the south­ern­most Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, a vast park ded­i­cated to nature and olive trees has emerged as the source of award-win­ning extra vir­gin olive oil.

Spanning dozens of hectares, the park is home to a diverse array of plants and ani­mals along­side thou­sands of olive trees. Each year, hun­dreds of thou­sands of vis­i­tors mar­vel at its nat­ural splen­dor.

Parque Olivas do Gramado rests in the lush green hills of the Caí River region, about two hours north of Porto Alegre. Officially opened to vis­i­tors six years ago, the olive park is rooted in a rich fam­ily tra­di­tion.

“The park cel­e­brated its sixth anniver­sary in December,” said André Bertolucci, co-owner of Olivas do Gramado. ​“However, the ground­work, includ­ing tourist infra­struc­ture, access roads, olive groves, machin­ery and equip­ment, was laid in the mid-2010s, when the first invest­ments were made on our fam­ily prop­erty to ful­fill a grand dream.”

Since 2023, Olivas do Gramado has earned two Silver Awards at con­sec­u­tive NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition edi­tions for its del­i­cate blend of Arbequina, Picual, Frantoio, Koroneiki, Ascolana and Manzanilla olives.

The fam­ily drew upon the exper­tise of patri­arch Pedro Bertolucci, who had been pro­mot­ing tourism in Brazil since the 1980s.

“Together with my sib­lings Paula and Daniel, and our late mother Susana Bertolucci, we vis­ited olive groves in coun­tries like Portugal, Spain and Italy, and observed that olive cul­ti­va­tion in Brazil was still in its early stages,” Bertolucci said.

It was then that oleo­tourism became the dri­ving force behind a new project.

“We saw a unique oppor­tu­nity to share the fas­ci­nat­ing process of pro­duc­ing high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil with Brazilians, enhanced by a range of gas­tro­nomic, adven­tur­ous, con­tem­pla­tive and enter­tain­ing expe­ri­ences that now form the core of activ­i­ties at Olivas do Gramado,” Bertolucci said.

“At the park, vis­i­tors can join the sen­sory har­mo­nized tast­ing, sam­pling up to seven dif­fer­ent olive oils and aro­matic infu­sions, each paired with spe­cific foods,” he added. ​“During daily pre­sen­ta­tions held across five ses­sions in our 40-seat audi­to­rium, our som­me­liers con­duct mini-classes on olive oil, address­ing top­ics such as har­vest­ing, extrac­tion, sen­sory attrib­utes, fraud, chem­i­cal analy­sis and an intro­duc­tion to sen­sory eval­u­a­tion.”

The Bertolucci fam­ily also invested in a tourist train, the Olivas Express, that trav­els through the olive grove while a tour guide describes plant­ing, olive grove man­age­ment and the har­vest.

“In February and March, we host an event called Nostra Oliva, where vis­i­tors take part in the olive har­vest and oil extrac­tion, even bot­tling their own liq­uid gold,” Bertolucci said. 

“The day con­cludes with a sun­set view over the canyons, fea­tur­ing guest DJs, a lav­ish antipasti spread, and, of course, our freshly made unfil­tered olio nuovo,” he added.

According to Bertolucci, Olivas do Gramado attracts 250,000 vis­i­tors annu­ally, ben­e­fit­ing from its loca­tion in a pop­u­lar local tourist des­ti­na­tion.

“Set within the Atlantic Forest and offer­ing breath­tak­ing views of the Pedras Brancas canyons in Gramado’s coun­try­side, an area shaped by Italian-German col­o­niza­tion in the Hortênsias region of Rio Grande do Sul, this dream became a real­ity,” Bertolucci said.

Olivas do Gramado cul­ti­vates 29 hectares of olive groves with approx­i­mately 12,600 olive trees, includ­ing Arbequina, Koroneiki, Ascolana and Manzanilla. Additional Spanish, Greek and Italian vari­eties are also grown across the prop­erty.

Most of the olive trees are around 10 years old, some younger. As these trees mature, the com­pany antic­i­pates a sub­stan­tial increase in olive yields.

Selecting the appro­pri­ate cul­ti­vars has been essen­tial to the suc­cess of the project.

“We learned a great deal from Uruguay, par­tic­u­larly from the Uruguayan Olive Association (Asolur) and the fac­ulty of chem­istry at the University of the Uruguayan Republic,” Bertolucci said.

“Uruguay has a long his­tory of olive cul­ti­va­tion in South America and serves as an excel­lent ref­er­ence for Brazilian olive farm­ing due to the sim­i­lar­i­ties in ter­roirs,” he added. ​“This greatly helped us select the vari­eties best suited to our soil in the Serra Gaúcha.” 

According to Bertolucci, envi­ron­men­tal preser­va­tion is one of the core prin­ci­ples of Brazilian olive cul­ti­va­tion.

“At Olivas do Gramado, all ripar­ian forests are com­pletely pre­served, pro­vid­ing pro­tec­tion for the grove against fungi, aphids, scale insects and other dis­eases that could affect the olive trees,” he said.

“A large por­tion of the tourist infra­struc­ture is pow­ered by a pho­to­voltaic plant, which uses solar pan­els to gen­er­ate green energy for the mill, lab­o­ra­tory, store and restau­rant,” Bertolucci added.

Furthermore, the com­pany sources its water from springs and arte­sian wells. Olivas do Gramado also places great impor­tance on waste treat­ment.

“All organic waste from the restau­rants is com­posted and later used as fer­til­izer for the olive groves and organic gar­dens,” Bertolucci said. ​“Non-organic waste, such as card­board, alu­minum, and plas­tic, is col­lected, sorted, and stored in con­tain­ers before being sent for recy­cling.”

“The pro­ceeds from sell­ing these mate­ri­als are rein­vested to main­tain trash bins and con­tain­ers, tourist sig­nage and envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion for our staff,” he added.

The com­pany also runs an efflu­ent treat­ment plant, described by Bertolucci as ​“state-of-the-art.” The plant con­verts waste­water into gray water used for out­door clean­ing.

“Additionally, over 49 hectares of per­ma­nent preser­va­tion areas guar­an­tee the full preser­va­tion of the region’s flora and fauna,” he said.

According to Bertolucci, olive grow­ers in the Serra Gaúcha region face two major chal­lenges, includ­ing the acidic basaltic soil, which has a high alu­minum con­tent and requires reg­u­lar lim­ing.

“The sec­ond chal­lenge is the steep ter­rain, which makes the instal­la­tion of shade nets and har­vest­ing more dif­fi­cult,” Bertolucci noted.

Despite sig­nif­i­cant invest­ments over the years, care­ful plan­ning, and good agri­cul­tural prac­tices, grow­ers in the region remain vul­ner­a­ble to the increas­ing unpre­dictabil­ity of the weather.

“In 2023, heavy rains from September to August dis­rupted the flow­er­ing, pol­li­na­tion, and fer­til­iza­tion stages of olive trees in south­ern Brazil,” Bertolucci recalled. ​“Only a few pro­duc­ers had suc­cess­ful har­vests in 2024, which was dis­ap­point­ing. The offi­cial 2024 har­vest open­ing was held at Olivas do Gramado, as our micro­cli­mate shielded us from the severe impacts faced by most Gaúcho pro­duc­ers.” 

“In May 2024, how­ever, we faced the largest cli­matic tragedy in the country’s his­tory. Torrential rains caused flood­ing, land­slides, and infra­struc­ture dam­age, includ­ing at our prop­erty, where the main access road was destroyed,” he added. ​“We had to open a sec­ondary road and make sig­nif­i­cant invest­ments to repair the dam­aged one.” 

“Despite these set­backs, we reopened the main access road this December and faced no major issues with the tourist facil­i­ties, mill or olive grove,” Bertolucci con­tin­ued.

Other chal­lenges stem from dis­eases that can afflict olive trees. 

“In Serra Gaúcha, high humid­ity lev­els and fre­quent fog neces­si­tate care­ful mon­i­tor­ing of fungi, which spread eas­ily in this envi­ron­ment,” Bertolucci explained. ​“Other dis­eases, such as scale insects, aphids, and white­flies, are less com­mon. To keep our olive grove healthy, we use reg­u­lated fungi­cides and insec­ti­cides to pro­tect the trees.”

“We are cur­rently test­ing organic prod­ucts from Poland on sec­tions of our olive grove to eval­u­ate the pos­si­bil­ity of tran­si­tion­ing to an organic cul­ti­va­tion sys­tem in the future,” he added.

The next step involves fur­ther expan­sion, with six addi­tional hectares of olive trees set to begin pro­duc­tion soon.