Thinking Small in Croatia The months prior are spent watching the fruits change color, a crucial moment for extra virgin olive oil to get the right balance. If you pluck them too green, you get more pungency and bitterness. If you keep them on their branches for too long, the oxidation process begins. It’s this level of care that allows Kristo and Dalmatian growers like him to compete with bigger producers in Italy and Spain. While the volume of olive oil produced here can’t compete with those heavy hitters, the meticulousness involved with small productions like this one means unmatched quality. It means a commitment to making a quality product over making money selling artisanal oils. The money is certainly nice, Kristo says, but he’s much more invested in ensuring the health of a product that means so much to not only his family, but the community. Seeing pictures of people cooking pasta with a bottle of their olive oil has been more meaningful than expected. Recognition for that effort in the form of national olive oil contests is nice, too. A Winning Formula Croatian olive oil has won numerous accolades on the international stage in recent years, including at the prestigious NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition. Croatian producers earned the fourthhighest number of awards at the 2024 competition despite fewer registered oils participating and a much smaller footprint for growing. The product is a result of generations of knowledge. Kristo hopes to participate on the world stage eventually. He talks about it not with envy, but pride that it’s even possible A spread of food you can expect at DuOlive
thanks to hard work and a dedication to the craft. It all hasn’t gone unrecognised. He won gold medals in the annual Žrnovnica Oil competition in Split in 2022 and 2023. My husband and I visited Kristo’s grove before picking season, spending over four hours walking the groves and listening to the intricacies of determinants on flavour and colour. The tour, a wordof-mouth suggestion from a local in town, was described to us as an olive oil tasting. We tasted quite a bit of olive oil — injecting olive oil into pieces of orange is one of our new favorite treats — but our visit was far more than that. It was an immersion into olive oil making and the history of these groves. It was as local an experience as you can get in a city that has been losing a bit of its identity over the years to over-tourism. We touched the ground and the trees. We learned about what is and isn’t worth it in terms of pest control and higher yields, always with the quality of the final product in mind.
Low Season Traveller
We ate dried figs, candied almonds, meats, and cheeses, all either produced on the family property or brought in from locals nearby. We drank Croatian wine and liqueurs. We laughed as the family’s dogs, Khan and Abi, zoomed through the grove before begging for scraps.
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Kristo describing the importance of soil management
It was the best meal we’d had in Croatia by miles, made all the more meaningful by the treatment we received. We started our afternoon as outsiders but became more like family, as if we now had a place in the grove’s storied history.
