What happened

A dry summer, then September.

Rain stopped at the end of May and did not return until autumn. Between June and August the grove received 7 mm against a ten-year average of 76 mm. The trees closed down: the drupes stayed small and water stress concentrated phenolic compounds in the fruit.

Then 58 mm fell in the second week of September. The fruit rehydrated, veraison ran fast, and we picked on 14 October, eight days earlier than the ten-year average, while free acidity was still at 0.16%.

Old trees carry a year like this better than young ones. Root systems built over two centuries reach water a fifteen-year-old plant cannot.

What it means for Olio Filo

Less fruit in the crates, more in the bottle.

4,775 kg of olives produced 563 litres of oil. In a wet year the same grove would have carried more fruit and diluted what you are tasting. The 784 mg/kg on this label is the direct consequence of a summer that gave the grove almost nothing.

Picking eight days early costs yield, because the fruit was still filling. It buys free acidity at 0.16% against a legal ceiling of 0.8%, and it keeps the polyphenols a later harvest degrades. That trade is the whole point of this line.

1,127 bottles is the entire 2026 Centennial production. The count is what it is.