Rock Hill Estate

A personal introduction:
We found this delicious product at a trade show...just happened to be ambling by, last row of the night, tired, and then - spotted! A FOOD SAMPLE!

The olive oil was in a dish with lavender salt and crisped French bread beside it. Well needless to say, one sample was not enough. I kept going back for more, one little dip at a time until I realized we must have it for our store. It's been a huge hit ever since.

Please enjoy reading about the company who we are so lucky to have stumbled upon. -Tracy

A Word From Rock Hill Estate

Rock Hill Estate is founded on a love for nature and a passion for the beauty and healing benefits of lavender and extra virgin olive oil.

We are Fred and Renate Borneman. In 1997 we were looking for our retirement get-a-way, a place in the country to relax and unwind. We found our beautiful land in Lovall Valley, Napa, California and began to get to work to landscape, build the road, dig the well it was a raw piece of golden California heaven. After living many years in Europe and falling in love with the Provence area of France, we decided to plant olive groves, lavender fields and a vineyard. As we began the planting our vision grew and the farm evolved.

Rock Hill Estate gets its name from the rocky hill that faces the front of the property each olive tree had to be jack-hammered into the hill side. Lucky for us olive trees love this type of terrain and require very little soil to root.

About the Olive Oil

Spreading over 10-acres our olive groves were planted to symbolize the ambiance and idyllic art of living in the old world tradition. The olive trees rise above the lavender fields and vineyard like sentinels guarding that tradition. We have imported our olive trees from Italy and from France. We grow five Italian cultivars which are: Moraioli, Cipercino, Lecchino, Pendolino and Frantoio and one French cultivar: Picholine. We also grow Manzanillo and Mission.

We grow our olives with no herbicides or pesticides, 100% naturally, and are currently pursuing organic certification for the entire farm. Our olives are handpicked in autumn usually in November, but it depends on the weather each year. For our Extra Virgin Olive Oil, the olives are handpicked when the fruit on the trees is one-third green (not yet ripe), one-third red (in-between) and one-third black (ripe).

Our Extra Virgin Olive Oil

After harvesting by hand, the olives are stone ground, mat pressed and unfiltered to create the finest Extra Virgin Olive Oil. It is fruity, strong and peppery. We belong to the California Olive Oil Council (COOC), which is working towards the regulation of the olive oil industry. Currently imported oils can claim they are extra-virgin yet this is not regulated or controlled. The COOC performs random tests on these oils and oftentimes finds that they are not what they claim to be. For an olive oil to be considered Extra Virgin it must meet certain criteria, the most significant being that the acidic level is less than 0.8%. We have consistently earned the COOC seal of excellence from the prestigious internationally recognized taste panel of the COOC! Our Extra Virgin Olive Oil is certified to be of the highest quality, and is bottled in exquisite elegant, long, tall French cobalt blue glass bottles to protect it from light maintaining its high quality.

Check out the product online here