Finca La Torre's Pursuit of Perfection in Málaga

Placed just south of Jaén and Córdoba, no won­der why Málaga province, in Southern Spain, may have been a bit over­shad­owed. At least when it comes to olive oil. But in a cor­ner, in the north of the province, things are chang­ing.

For four years in a row, Finca la Torre has been cho­sen as the best organic extra vir­gin olive oil pro­ducer in Spain by the country’s Ministry of Agriculture.

This estate near Antequera, only 50km inland from the provin­cial cap­i­tal, has won more than 30 awards in the last five years, includ­ing six Gold and two Best in Class Awards at the pres­ti­gious New York International Olive Oil Competition.

“In Málaga, there is the advan­tage that there exist dif­fer­ent cli­mates. Thus there is a very impor­tant diver­sity in terms of vari­eties of olives,” said Víctor Pérez, an engi­neer and direc­tor of this Swiss-owned com­pany.

The Northern stretch of the province, where Finca La Torre is sit­u­ated, is a dry area with some Mediterranean influ­ence. Here is where the ​“sea of olive trees” — spread­ing north­ward up to Jaén — begins.

South of the province, closer to the sea, the land­scape turns more moun­tain­ous and humid.

“Depending on the ter­ri­tory where we are, we will be able to taste very dif­fer­ent kinds of olive oils. So the wealth of vari­eties here is much more impor­tant than in other regions,” Pérez told Olive Oil Times.

From the top of a hill where work­ers are prun­ing the olive trees after the har­vest, Pérez pointed to dif­fer­ent areas of the estate. Old tra­di­tional olive groves alter­nate with newly planted trees, pas­tures and wood­lands. Pérez high­lighted the impor­tance of this diverse ecosys­tem.

“We have around 380 hectares. Of those, just 230 are ded­i­cated to olive trees. The rest is for­est. We com­bine olive trees with cat­tle. This plays an impor­tant role as it helps both to con­trol weeds and fer­til­iza­tion.”

The whole pro­duc­tion, he said, is cer­ti­fied as bio­dy­namic and organic and the estate’s 34,000 olive trees fea­ture a range of local vari­eties.

“Roughly 50 per­cent out of 230 hectares are of 130-year-old tra­di­tional olives of the Hojiblanca vari­ety. We also have 100 hectares of inten­sive olive groves where we grow four dif­fer­ent vari­eties: Hojiblanca, Arbequina, Picudo and Cornicabra,” Pérez explained.

When asked about the rea­sons for the recent suc­cess of Finca la Torres’s oils, he added:

“We have spe­cial­ized much more in the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of top-of-the-line olive oil. We are a com­pany that has its own pro­duc­tion and we also bet on a change of phi­los­o­phy. While most farm­ers har­vest very late, we bet on a very early har­vest.”

Málaga lies well behind Spain’s olive oil giants in terms of pro­duc­tion. Still, this Andalusian province ranks fifth among the olive oil pro­duc­ing areas in the European coun­try, just after Jaén, Córdoba, Granada and Seville.

In 2015 – 16, Málaga — which is home to more than 22,000 olive farm­ers — pro­duced 75,000 tons of olive oil. It may be far from the 600,000 tons of Jaén, which accounts for around 20 per­cent of the world’s pro­duc­tion, but it is not a despi­ca­ble fig­ure.

However, beyond quan­tity, things are chang­ing in Málaga’s olive oil scene. And it is start­ing to spread beyond Finca la Torre.

“I think we have spear­headed this,” Pérez said, ​“in the sense that pro­duc­ers around you see that you are capa­ble of win­ning the Foods of Spain Award for the last years and also inter­na­tional recog­ni­tion.”

“This opens the path to other ways of fac­ing the pro­duc­tion of olive oil: not only the typ­i­cal bulk pro­duc­tion. No. There is another way you can fol­low, which is the bet on qual­ity. Not pro­duc­ing big quan­ti­ties but reach­ing to the end. To the con­sumer.”

“Many pro­duc­ers are join­ing this phi­los­o­phy,” Pérez assured.