Here is why we call it URRAH

There is an island far away, sometimes it is too far away...


...Where the sun shines 340 days a year...


...If you close your eyes you can't escape the blue of the sky and the sea...


...And the land is so bountiful, you drop a seed and the best produce crop up, while the weeds wilt - they feel ashamed of their meanness...


There is where Urrah comes from: a contrada (a division of a municipality) just west of the town of Menfi. It is a magnificent rural strip that covers about 3km from the sea inwards, and has the funny guttural name of Gurra, contrada di Gurra.

No one would really know this, if the local wine cooperative Settesoli hadn't called the locally produced Sauvignon Blanc Urra di mare. And, oh man, it's an excellent wine...


Now, I am not sure if we were inspired to call our oil Urrah under the influence of Urra, but our name is nonetheless an homage to this wine and of course to the land, the gurra that produces it.

Urrah! It's nearly Christmas!

This year's new batch of Urrah will be arriving Thursday 8th December, give Urrah organic olive oil for Christmas!

Dear loyal costumers, this year's new organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) is arriving this week and we are impatient to taste the new batch which has been hailed as the best since we started production.

We will be holding an open tasting session at ours on Saturday, the 10th December between 10.30am and 5.30pm. For the address drop me an email: ferraline@gmail.com

Hope to see you then!

New Year, New Organic Oil

Happy New Year to everyone, may 2016 bring you joy, health and love, but most of all, EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL!

The new batch of 2015 Urrah oil has arrived yesterday, slightly later than usual, just in time for New Year wishes.

With its bright green colour, a bouquet of cut grass and artichoke and a peppery after taste Urrah is extremely versatile and can be used on all your favorite dishes (grilled, steamed and raw foods), but not for deep/stir frying.

2015 has been a bumper year for olive oil. The harvest started around mid October, ensuring protection against the threat of the oil fly. The acidity levels were at the lowest recorded (less than 0,2%) making our olive oil super extra virgin!

This January the farm has achieved the organic certification after two years of checks and hard work. Urrah oil is farmed following strict European standards: our olives are harvested manually and cold milled within 15 hours from harvest to ensure the taste is preserved intact.

Although we have obtained certification of organic farming our prices haven't changed this year. So, you can enjoy Urrah in tins of 1L for the price of £12 and 3L for the price of £33.
Payments on collection or delivery only.

We hope you enjoy the full flavour that Urrah brings to your table!

How to order

Please fill in this contact form  to order Urrah.

Urrah! We did it again...

We are going to have a new batch of our deliciously peppery Sicilian extra virgin olive oil again available to buy -hopefully - just in time for Christmas! 

Our oil 

Our olives are harvested by hand and cold pressed within hours from harvest to ensure best tasting results.
The oil is a mix of of two varieties of olives, Nocellara del Belice and Biancolilla.
Nocellara del Belice oil delivers a peppery taste with accents of cut grass, while Biancolilla is fruity and sweeter with hints of almond. The mix of this two variety results in a extra virgin oil of olive that is excellent on grilled or steamed dishes, soups and salads.
The arrival of the shipment should be at the beginning of December, still on time for Christmas presents.

UPDATE: The oil has just arrived! After a long, long, long wait the oil has arrived this morning. It must have had a lot of fun on the way as quite a few cans have received a real bashing!

News from the groves

The harvest has been disastrous and the price of the oil has sky rocketed. According to a report on Radio 4 You and Yours (find it here from minute 18.43 to minute 24.58).
Our benchmark competitor Stroud Green Olive Oil has had to cancel this year delivery as the crop was badly affected by adverse weather throughout the year. In Sicily a bad drought has halved the production of olive oil but the lesson learnt from last year our early harvest has staved off pests.
If you can still find cheap oil around it's either last years or is an oil mixed up with a lesser quality product. Our oil speaks for itself.

The pricing

Due to an all-Mediterranean  disastrous crop this year we had to adjust the price of our olive oil to the market rate. This year our pricing is:

1L= £12
3L=£33
5L=£50

Payments on collection or delivery only.

Ordering

This year we have set up an online ordering form that will help us keep track of quantity you can find here.
To make things easier  we can also have it delivered anywhere with parcel2go. Prices vary as Parcel to go is a quote aggregator of curriers. Bear in mind that the cheapest deliveries are from collect point to collect point.

Your feed-back

We have listened to your feedback from last year about tins not being practical on the table and we now reccomend buying an oil pourer  like the one below. A little funnel will make all your decanting easier and spill free.

I have never used this company, if someone buys from them let me know. Please note that we don't recommend to add the twig of rosemary to your bottle as our oil does not need any flavour booster added to.

NOW SIT BACK AND ENJOY!!

Urrah is here!

Urrah! The oil has arrived and is safely stored in the house. 

(Few boxes stored under my desk, not as disruptive as the box of books that has been sitting in my living room for the past 2 weeks waiting to be taken to the charity shop). 

I am having last minute conundrums on how to package it as I know some people want to give it as a Christmas present and I am not happy with this year's tins. (Last year's on the left this year on the right.) 

So, I am waiting for the labels to arrive by the end of the week and we should be ready to go by the beginning of next week.

Thank you for your patience!

Urrah, through trial and error, we made it!

SPOILER: we did it, and it's arriving soon. Will keep you posted.


Last week we got down to a very summery Menfi (where? here!) full of energy and optimism to pick, squeeze, ship the olives from our small olive grove.
Strong of an 80 litres of oil of olive commission from friends in the UK, our enthusiasm was soon crashed by some trifling agronomic hitches.
It was less than a veni, vidi, vici than a seat at the table, taste bread and olive oil, drink wine and eat delicious Sicilian patisserie!

The season was bad

Due to an unseasonal bout of rain in August,and soaring temperatures throughout the month of October the olives had matured early and got attacked by 

THE FLY

Now, this is luck! - or maybe simply typical - for some inexperienced naive amateur as we are.

The new olive oil

Last year was a bumper season, and we got lulled into thinking that the production would continue to grow exponentially once the new trees started producing this year.
The young trees were harvested first and produced around 60 litres of a really peppery young oil.

We have shipped 5L of this new oil. The most daring will be allowed to sample!

We got the ORO

Fortunately our Gaspare (see below), who helps us with everything at the Cipressi (that's the name of the house) had started the harvest without us and managed to produce 50 litres of excellent olive oil.
Perfect in acidity (<0,3), taste, colour the crop we call it ORO (by its former owner Mr Michele Oro) and the name fits quite well the description of this oil, with its golden green colour and its flavoursome and mild taste.

But that wasn't enough to satisfy everyone. Try to consider that an average Italian family (of 4) gets through 20 litres of oil a year.

Production costs

When we started reasoning about costs, (something that so far has not worried the lord of the land, Mr Ferrari) we were confronted with the undeniable: our production costs were unsustainable! And that without counting packaging and delivery costs. Oh my! Very romantic, but not very entrepreneurial.

Sciroca's

Sciroca is the man who will rent some of our lands from now on. He was rooting for all of them but my dad wants to play the farmer a little bit longer. The idea of going to Sicily to go to the beach fills Mr Ferrari with horror. I say: chill out dad!

Sciroca has 18 hectares of olive groves, is passionate about oil and wine, and most crucially, owns a tractor!
Talking to him we learnt a great deal about the oil. He had harvested already and had blended this oil that we really liked. We got 60L of his olive oil, too.

His oil is a blend of two varieties: Nocellara del Belice (65%) and Biancolilla (35%).
The result is a deliciously medium bodied oil that foregoes that spiciness that some find sometimes overwhelming of our own oil and is more balanced to the palate.

Meanwhile Bertolino...

Bertolino is a piece of land that swoops down a hill with views to the sea and the seldom goat.
Franco e Gaspare did all the hard work. Some trees had been affected by the fly but others were still intact. We harvested the good ones and left the other sadly laden with the fruit.

The result is another 50L of our strong, full bodied, spicy oil. The proof is in the pudding!


Packaging

Last year we found some beautifully (slightly more expensive) blank aluminium tin cans.
Well, forget about those this year! Rustic is the fashion! We have learnt the hard way that you can buy class only with time and good contacts.

We bottled around 60 1L cans to the brink: we wouldn't want anyone thinking we are scrimping on content? You can imagine our horror when Sciroca's oil finished before we filled up all of the tins. Well it turns out that you have to fill them 9/10 to the top.

Which is good news for you my friends!

In total we are shipping 100kg of oil. That's what I call a pretty good start.

Shipping

Finally we delivered the oil HERE!! Hope it arrives!