The 2025 vintage marks the debut release from Beyond Olives — the first oil pressed by Daniel Zumofen, a neurosurgeon whose devotion to the land is a form of prayer. This is not mass production. This is not even production in the conventional sense. It is stewardship made liquid — every olive gathered by hands that give back what the earth has given.
From 44 organically tended trees, we pressed 76 liters of oil in autumn 2024. Boutique by scale. Family by conviction. Every bottle carries the signature of a single season, a single place, and the quiet discipline of a man who refuses to cut corners — in any part of his life.
Il Chirurgo e L'Olio · The Surgeon and the Oil
In a conventional olive farm, 44 trees would be almost negligible—too few to justify harvesting, pressing, bottling. But Beyond Olives is not conventional. These 44 trees represent care. They represent attention. They represent the decision to prioritize quality over quantity, meaning over margin.
The 76 liters we pressed from the 2025 harvest translate to 152 quarter-liter bottles or 76 half-liter bottles. This is oil you will savor, not oil you will consume carelessly. This is oil that demands to be tasted, to be honored, to be part of a deliberate meal rather than a routine meal.
When this vintage is gone, it will be gone. The 2026 harvest will be different—perhaps smaller, perhaps different in flavor. The terroir changes. The season changes. The oil that emerges will be a different record.
When roots run deep, time becomes flavor
The 44 trees that produced this oil are not young. Many have roots deeper than 500 years. They grow in limestone soil—the terroir of the Valle d'Itria, where the earth itself is ancient, where water is scarce, where the trees learn to reach deep for what they need. Adversity makes them resilient. Scarcity makes them concentrate their essence.
The Adriatic wind finds these trees. The summer heat presses on them. The winter cold challenges them. Each season leaves its mark in the oil—the peppery quality speaks of early autumn, the grassy notes of spring's growth, the golden color of harvest time. The soil, the wind, the light—all of these are translated into taste.
This is terroir. This is what it means when wine people speak of the place expressing itself through the fruit. The 2025 oil is not separate from the land. The 2025 oil is the land speaking.
La Degustazione · The Tasting
The 2025 oil presents itself in deep gold-green—the color of early harvest, of olives picked before full ripeness. The aroma is sharp, grassy, alive. When you taste it, the peppery catch arrives immediately, followed by subtle bitterness—the sign of polyphenols, the compounds that make oil age gracefully.
Tasting notes: Fresh grass. Artichoke. Green almond. A whisper of black pepper that lingers on the throat. Sweet undercut with herbaceous complexity. The finish is clean, with a brightness that speaks of fruit handled with care, pressed at the moment of peak freshness.
This oil will evolve. In six months, the sharp green notes will soften. In a year, new complexity will emerge. In three years, it will still taste of the 2024 season—but a 2024 season understood more deeply, as if the passage of time added wisdom to the oil's voice.
76 bottles of 500ml—the classic format for daily use and cooking. A bottle of this size will last several months in a well-tended kitchen, allowing you to live with the oil, to understand its character across seasons of your own use. This is the commitment to daily reverence—to pour this oil deliberately across summer salads, to finish soups with its peppery warmth, to use it as both nourishment and meditation. The half-liter is the vessel of slow time, the format that asks you to return repeatedly to the oil's depth, to notice how your palate evolves with familiarity.
To choose the half-liter is to choose relationship. You are inviting this oil into your kitchen, into your cooking practices, into the intimate rituals of feeding yourself and those you love. The bottle itself becomes a familiar object, a touchstone of terroir expression on your shelf. As you use the oil across months, you become a partner in the harvest story, extending the conversation between land and table.
152 bottles of 250ml—the gift format, the tasting format, the way to offer this oil to someone without asking for a long-term commitment. Perfect for those who wish to taste the 2025 vintage without overcommitting, or to share it with multiple people. This is the size of introduction, of genuine sharing without burden. A quarter-liter fits gracefully on a shelf, travels easily to a friend's table, carries with it the significance of a truly considered gift.
To give a quarter-liter bottle is to share an experience, to say: taste this, understand this, know where this comes from. It is the format of discovery, allowing someone to experience the full sensory journey—color, aroma, palate—without the commitment of a half-liter. It is also the format of abundance in constraint: in sharing, both giver and receiver participate in the philosophy of Beyond Olives, celebrating that the finest things are limited, precious, and best savored slowly in the company of those we care for.
A limited-edition tin bearing the Beyond Olives mark and the 2025 vintage date. These tins preserve the oil with elegance, protecting it from light, and becoming a beautiful object in your space—a reminder of the harvest long after the oil is gone. The tin itself is designed as a vessel worthy of the oil it contains—a crafted object that honors the craft of pressing, the reverence of stewardship, the philosophy that every element of Beyond Olives must reflect our commitment to quality over quantity.
This is the format of collectors, of those who understand that some harvests demand to be kept, to be preserved, to be revisited and remembered. The tin protects the oil from oxidation and light degradation, extending its lifespan while preserving its freshness. It is also a keepsake—a tangible object that speaks of the 2025 harvest, the terroir of that particular year, the hands that gathered and pressed. Long after the oil is used, the tin remains as a beautiful reminder of this moment in time, this convergence of land, labor, and care. To choose the tin is to choose to honor memory itself.
"The trees decide the quantity. I simply listen." — Daniel Zumofen, MD
In industrial agriculture, yield is maximized. Trees are pushed to produce more, soil is exhausted, the cycle accelerates until collapse becomes inevitable. At Beyond Olives, Daniel has chosen the opposite — the same way he chose medicine over business, and the land over convenience. He listens to what the trees offer. He harvests what they give. He presses what he harvests. He offers what he can, knowing that next year may be different.
The 2025 oil is available now, in limited quantity, in two formats. When it is gone, there will be the 2026 harvest—which may be abundant or spare, which will certainly taste different, which will carry its own story.
To choose the 2025 is to choose constraint. To choose quality over quantity. To choose the belief that the best things in life cannot be mass-produced, only made with care for those patient enough to seek them.
Home
The Farm
The Land
The Renovations
Overview
The Trees
The Olives
The Harvest
The Pressing
Bee Sanctuary
Biodiversity