Limited edition · 9 bottles · May 2026
On the map, Teba (Málaga) is a name one pronounces with a touch of hesitation: the sierra of snows, in the very heart of Andalusia. The paradox is deliberate. An hour from Málaga, the massif rises to 1,919 metres and keeps its name winter and summer alike. It is there, on the southern slope at 555 metres of elevation, that Almazara Terraverne grows its Hojiblanca olive trees. An unusual altitude in Andalusia, where most groves stretch across the plain under a steady sun. Here the climate is different: warm days, cool nights, the wind from the Atlas coming down at night. And it is this contrast — this thermal breathing — that changes everything in the glass.
Altitude, a detail that isn't one
An olive from the plain and an olive from mid-mountain do not ripen at the same pace. On the plain, continuous heat speeds maturation: the olive accumulates oil quickly, but also loses its phenolic compounds just as quickly — the molecules that give an AOVE its noble bitterness, its pungent finish and its stability over time. At altitude, ripening slows. Cool nights force the olive to concentrate its aromas. The result is measured at the mill: more polyphenols, more chlorophyll, more aromatic complexity. The pungency on the palate is not a flaw — it is the signature of a young olive, pressed in time, rich in natural antioxidants.
At 555 metres, Almazara Terraverne sits just above the line where this change becomes perceptible. Lower down, one is on the plain. Higher up, production turns marginal. This altitude band — 500 to 700 m on the Andalusian southern slope — is a little-known olive-oil niche, yet one acknowledged by oil sommeliers as among the most expressive in Spain.
Hojiblanca: the olive of the south, overlooked in France
Hojiblanca is the emblematic olive of southern Spain. Its name literally means “white leaf”, after the silvery sheen on the underside of its leaves in the sun. It is also a dual-use olive: it yields oil, but also table olives — the fleshy, bitter ones served with a glass of fino in Seville. As an oil, it has a character that lovers of Italian AOVE do not recognise immediately: less sweetness, more edge. Freshly cut grass. Raw almond. A light note of wild tomato. And above all that mid-palate pungency that surprises, then stretches — never turning aggressive when the olive has ripened well.
Almazara Terraverne harvests in mid-October, what in Andalusia is called aceite temprano — early oil. The olives are still green, sometimes edging into purple. They yield less oil per litre (an extraction rate of 11 to 13%, against 18–20% for a ripe olive), but they give a denser, more aromatic, more stable oil. Pressing happens cold, within hours of picking, without intermediaries. Final acidity falls below 0.2° — well beneath the legal threshold of 0.8° for an AOVE.
Three international awards, and an editorial choice
Almazara Terraverne's Hojiblanca 555 has won in two years: two stars at the Great Taste Awards 2026 (United Kingdom), Gold at the Dubai International Taste Awards, and a Paris Honey Awards 2024. Three geographies, three juries, one consensus: this is an AOVE with something to say.
We selected it because it illustrates exactly what we want to put in our catalogue: oils that do not hide. That have a terroir, a producer, a character. And that do not reach us by the container — but by the bottle, nine at a time, because Almazara Terraverne is a small almazara that produces little and well.
How to use it
This oil deserves to be drunk. Pour a spoonful into a small glass, warm it in the palm of your hand, smell it, then taste it neat. It is the only way to grasp what an award-winning AOVE can do. Then, at the table: on toasted bread, on ripe tomatoes with a pinch of fleur de sel, drizzled over barely cooked cod, or to finish a paella before serving. Raw, always — never for cooking. At CHF 24.90 the 500 ml bottle, this is an oil one keeps for moments when the oil is the dish.
Why only nine bottles?
Because we work by discovery, not by stock. We buy little, we test, we offer, we replace. If Hojiblanca 555 finds its audience in French-speaking Switzerland, it will return. Otherwise, it will give way to another discovery. This is our way of keeping a living catalogue — and of not betraying producers by ordering more than we can sell.
