A bit of background

Hopefully, this blog will be relatively entertaining and informative – that’s my intention – but it’s also to try and convey a little about the soul of our business as so many companies today are just about the bottom line, whereas Wise Tree Oil, while not averse to making a profit, is more about sharing the love – or more precisely our love of all things Corfiot especially their unbelievably smooth and tasty Olive Oils.

So from time to time, I will be adding to this blog with an update on our progress, new products, and a few pictures to give you a glimpse of our happy place – Corfu.

To start though, a bit of background, my wife Alison and I have been travelling to Greece for nearly 35 years, but in fact, I first visited Corfu by way of a broken relationship as far back as 1981. I had arrived in Kos after three days on the crappiest bus journey in the world from Kings Cross London to find that during the tedium of the coach ride my then girlfriend had shacked up with a stuntman. I briefly considered bopping him on the nose but decided against it as he’d of just bounced right back up again, plus I was then and remain epically rubbish at fisticuffs. Feeling a bit sorry for myself I caught a flight to Athens, a long train ride through the Peloponnese and a ferry to Corfu. I ended up staying months and fell in love all over again – this time with an island! I celebrated my twenty second birthday in what was then called The Cheeky Monkey Bar on the dusty main road through Gouvia and lived above the Red Lion; the sign that hung over the bar that I painted for them read “London – Paris – New York – Gouvia” if anyone remembers that! Back then Gouvia was a relatively quiet tourist destination with its handful of bars and one significantly sized hotel run by a local millionaire racehorse breeding playboy. Long halcyon sunny days but I somehow earnt enough Drachmas to enjoy life with the aforementioned sign painting, plus working in the fields, in a butchers, cleaning barnacles of yachts – just doing whatever I could to get by. Man, I loved it, and have been a Corfu addict ever since.

Eventually, I returned to England, met my wife Alison and we married in 1986. Of course, we choose Greece, though (don’t listen Corfiots) we went to Crete, but since that time while we have holidayed all across Europe, in Kenya, St Lucia, California, Oman, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and elsewhere, Greece but specifically Corfu is our “go-to” and my absolute favourite place on the planet. I love the people, the pace, the food, (especially the tomatoes), the rich greenery, the sunshine, the blue skies – I even love the rain and the storms. It’s no wonder Shakespeare based the setting for The Tempest in Corfu, or Homer brought Odysseus, Jason and the Golden Fleece to this magical island – it’s simply incredibly special with some of the most breathtaking scenery, the most turquoise waters and prettiest hidden coves and sandy shorelines you will ever find.

So, you get it, we don’t like Corfu, we love it! We have been back countless times, nearly always staying with our good friends Ninos and Lindsay who own Ninos on the Beach in Roda. Seeking to find more permanent roots in 2006 I bought an olive grove in Omali with a view to building a house there, but sadly somehow have always failed to save the £250k needed for the build, but we regularly return to Omali to eat at the blissfully panoramic Taverna Charolaou while collecting my sporadic ground rent  – a litre or two of oil made from my own ancient olive trees.

It was this annual pilgrimage to Omali that made me wonder if it was possible to find several growers in Corfu and import their oil back to the UK (it genuinely is the finest you will find anywhere), so last year Ali and I set about finding the best olive oil on the island – what a great job that was and is! We identified four farmers, Spyros in the North East in Agios Georgios, Spyros being the father of the hoteliers’ son’s wife who we stay within Roda (work that out) and a charming man who makes the purest “Lianolia” olive oil I have ever tasted, all from young trees his father planted just twenty five years ago. Another Spiros who owns Nyssos in Moraitika and uses the perfect blend of the native Corfiot “Lianolia” olive and more common Kalamata “Koroneiki” olives to make a less gentle (but if I am an honest more spicy, stronger flavoured oil from his literally ancient trees) and we also found ultra-smooth, rich Virgin Oils made by Thomas who owns the Valanion groves. Ultimately, we went with the Stametelos family who own Nyssos, as they have been farming olives for generations and their blend of Lianolia and Koroneiki (which is 60:40) is perfect. Also, they are really lovely people.

By the way, almost every piece of arable land (and it’s almost all arable) is entirely untainted by modern fertilisers, all are small growers with maximum capacities measured in thousands of litres rather than hundreds of thousands (unlike the major supermarket brands from” Origin Europe”), and all the product we are importing now and will be importing in the future is from families who own their land, who care about the environment and love their products. Much as I do.

All the flavours are real, pure fresh sun kissed bounty.

So this is our dream. I very much hope you can help us sustain and grow this business..

Love to all you grecophiles and olive oil lovers everywhere x

Paul & Ali