Since its founding in 1973, Esporão has become one of the largest producers of Portuguese wine and olive oil, playing a decisive role in raising international awareness of the Alentejo region and exporting to more than 50 countries. Today, Esporão is an ambassador of Portuguese culture. Dedicated to sustainability, it is committed to building meaningful relationships with customers and consumers worldwide. Since 1997, Esporão has taken advantage of the knowhow acquired in wine production and has been applying it to making high quality olive oils. Esporão currently tends more than 100 ha of organic olive groves. In addition to its own production, Esporão partners with more than 60 local farmers equally dedicated to preserving native olives and traditional Alentejo groves.
Olival da Torre, Herdade do Esporão
Herdade do Esporão, in the Alentejo, has remarkably good conditions for farming and currently encompasses around 100 ha of olive groves planted within a balanced ecosystem rich in biodiversity. Next to the emblematic Herdade do Esporão Tower stands a century-old grove with Galega olives, the oldest variety in Portugal. Here you can find our ancient olive tree, dating back more than 1200 years.
Olival dos Arrifes, Herdade do Esporão
In 2007, we started investing in organic olive oils. Olival dos Arrifes, at Herdade do Esporão was the first. The name Arrifes refers to the cliffs surrounded by rocky soils that make the olive trees more resilient and around which stretches a balanced ecosystem rich in biodiversity
Olival de Cordovil, Herdade do Esporão
In 2019 we planted about 9ha of organic Cordovil olive groves. Originally from around Serpa or Elvas in the Alentejo, this olive produces high yields, albeit irregularly. Its olive oil is intensely fruity with strong and complex herbaceous notes reminiscent of olive leaf and Portuguese greens.
Olival dos Murças, Quinta dos Murças
Our estate Quinta dos Murças, in the Douro River Valley has 14ha of groves planted with Galega and Negrinha de Freixo olives, whose olive oil displays the characteristic effects of the higher altitude and this region’s particular climate.
The Herdade do Esporão mill was designed and built in 2016 to adhere to circular economy principles by which all the olive oils are produced sustainably and nothing is lost in production. Within hours of the harvest, the fruit arrives in the mill for careful sorting by variety and quality before being pressed. Low temperature extraction ensures that the nutrients, aromas, and flavours are preserved. We guarantee that the people, product, and nature itself is afforded the maximum possible care throughout by the use of:
• Innovative solutions that ensure cold extraction below 27ºC.
• Composting and treatment of the olive pomace that assure zero waste.
• An onsite treatment facility so that the water can be reused.
• Producing energy from olive pits to be used for electricity and water heating across the Estate.
ANA CARRILHO
OLEOLOGIST
Ana Carrilho’s interest in olive oil began when, as part of her Agronomy degree at the Instituto Superior de Agronomia de Lisboa, she took a course entitled Oil and Fat Technology. She’d always enjoyed a challenge and the Portuguese olive oil market as the time offered her just that. Her quest for knowledge took her to Italy where she joined the research and development department of the largest olive oil company in the world, Carapelli.
Olive oil became a passion and she returned to Portugal as a guest researcher at the university where she had studied previously. She also spent two years studying in Spain, building three olive mills. Ana is an olive oil taster in numerous national and international competitions, an advocate for native olive varieties and for quality. She is now Director oft he Esporão’s Olive Oil Business Unit, whose story began in 2013.
