2025 Harvest of the “Aceite Farga Milenaria” Guarantee Trademark ( 3/10/2025 )

Olis Santa Bàrbara begins the season with 52 olive trees from six towns

On October 3rd, the harvest of Farga olives began for the production of certified oil under the Aceite Farga Milenaria Guarantee Trademark. A total of 18 olive oil companies belonging to the Taula del Sénia Territory Association take part in this initiative – 10 from the province of Castellón and 8 from Tarragona.

This year, the first to start was the new cooperative Olis de Santa Bàrbara (created from the merger of the town’s two previous cooperatives). The harvest includes olives from 52 Millenary or Monumental olive trees, all of which are listed in the Official Register of Monumental Olive Trees of the Government of Catalonia.

The 52 trees are located across six towns in the Montsià region: 19 in Santa Bàrbara, 19 in Ulldecona, 7 in Freginals, 5 in Amposta, 1 in Godall, and 1 in La Ràpita. This distribution is quite natural, since the Montsià region contains 85% of the 4,160 monumental olive trees registered in Catalonia.

During the harvest, technicians from the Mancomunitat Taula del Sénia were present, working under the supervision of an inspector from the certification company NAcert. Their task is to ensure that all olives are hand-picked directly from the tree and that they com exclusively from trees registered in the Taula del Sénia database – each with a trunk circumference greater than 350 cm measured at a height of 10 cm from the ground.

Over the next two weeks, all other participating companies will continue collecting their olives. The process includes immediate transport to the mill and same-day pressing. Before storage, every batch of oil is filtered and sent to laboratories and tasting panels accredited by the International Olive Council (IOC). Only those oils that meet all the requirements of the Guarantee Trademark Regulations –which in some aspects are even stricter than those for Extra Virgin Olive Oil—will be bottled and labeled under this certification.

Expectations for this year’s harvest are very positive, especially in terms of quality, while the quantity is expected to be around the average.