Great Winterhoek Slopes Help Shape Award-Winning South African Olive Oils

Summary

Porterville Olives in South Africa’s Western Cape is a fam­ily-owned oper­a­tion pro­duc­ing award-win­ning extra vir­gin olive oils under the Andante label. The com­pany, led by the Basson fam­ily, focuses on qual­ity over yield, with their oils rec­og­nized with Gold and Silver Awards at the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition since 2016. Despite chal­lenges in the mar­ket, Porterville Olives aims to expand domes­ti­cally and inter­na­tion­ally, with a focus on pro­vid­ing high-grade oils and increas­ing con­sumer edu­ca­tion.

In South Africa’s Western Cape, fam­ily-owned Porterville Olives is adding momen­tum to the country’s grow­ing olive oil indus­try, pro­duc­ing award-win­ning extra vir­gin olive oils under its Andante label.

“Our olives are located 15 kilo­me­ters south of Porterville, on the west­ern slopes of the Great Winterhoek moun­tain range,” owner and mas­ter miller Jan Hendrik Basson told Olive Oil Times.

He said the area’s Mediterranean cli­mate — hot, dry sum­mers and cool, wet win­ters — helps shape the oils’ char­ac­ter. Basson added that the moun­tain influ­ence slightly mod­er­ates sum­mer heat, while cooler nights dur­ing ripen­ing slow mat­u­ra­tion and sup­port fla­vor devel­op­ment.

The set­ting is paired with a long Basson fam­ily tra­di­tion of farm­ing the land, passed down through gen­er­a­tions.

Basson and his wife acquired the land from his father in 1998. In 2006, olive oil enthu­si­ast Willie Duminy pur­chased a por­tion of the Basson farm and devel­oped it into the Andante Olive Estate. The first olive trees were planted in 2007, and the first har­vest fol­lowed in 2010.

In 2024, Basson regained own­er­ship of the estate from the Duminy fam­ily, return­ing it to the orig­i­nal Basson farm after man­ag­ing the groves and pro­duc­ing the oils from the start.

Basson, his wife, Merna, and their son, Jan Hendrik Jr., the fifth gen­er­a­tion on the farm, now lead the olive oper­a­tion at Porterville Olives.

The company’s groves include about 36,000 trees across mul­ti­ple cul­ti­vars, includ­ing Frantoio, Leccino, Coratina, FS17, Mission, Kalamata, Nocellara del Belice and Koroneiki.

“Our olive trees are planted on gen­tly slop­ing, well-drained soils, with the orchards ori­ented to both north- and south-fac­ing aspects,” Basson said.

He said the vari­a­tion in expo­sure cre­ates sub­tle dif­fer­ences in ripen­ing, help­ing the oils express bal­ance, fresh­ness and com­plex­ity.

Supplementary irri­ga­tion is typ­i­cally applied from October through April or May, when the har­vest occurs, to reduce fruit stress dur­ing South Africa’s dry sea­son.

Basson said the farm is in the early stages of a tran­si­tion to regen­er­a­tive farm­ing, describ­ing it as a long-term effort focused on rebuild­ing soil car­bon and top­soil organic mat­ter.

“Improving soil struc­ture and bio­log­i­cal activ­ity is cen­tral to pro­mot­ing the devel­op­ment of a healthy root sys­tem, which is essen­tial for con­sis­tent olive fruit qual­ity,” he said.

Andante Intenso is the company’s flag­ship, a medium-to-intense mono­va­ri­etal extra vir­gin olive oil made exclu­sively from Nocellara del Belice.

The producer’s Andante oils have been rec­og­nized with Gold and Silver Awards at the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition since 2016. In the 2025 edi­tion for Southern Hemisphere pro­duc­ers, Porterville Olives won two Gold Awards for Andante Intenso and Andante Forte, bring­ing its total to 17 NYIOOC awards (12 Gold and five Silver).

Porterville Olives is listed in the Official Guide and ranks as South Africa’s most suc­cess­ful pro­ducer on the Olive Oil Times World Ranking, which tracks the most-awarded pro­duc­ers and brands world­wide. The country’s per­for­mance is detailed on the South Africa coun­try stats page.

“Willie Duminy, who started the olive farm in 2007, wanted to make the best olive oil in South Africa and the world, a vision that seemed impos­si­ble at the time,” Basson said.

“The two gold awards we received at the 2025 NYIOOC demon­strate that our olives remain of world-class stan­dards,” he added.

Basson said the 2025 har­vest pro­duced more olives than in 2024, but the oil yield in liters per kilo­gram of fruit was lower than in pre­vi­ous years.

“The qual­ity was still out­stand­ing,” he said. ​“As a small-scale oper­a­tion, we are able to focus our atten­tion on har­vest­ing each cul­ti­var at their opti­mal ripeness, typ­i­cally green to half-ripe.”

He added that pro­cess­ing speed is crit­i­cal. Minimizing the time from har­vest to press helps keep per­ox­ides low, while ear­lier har­vest­ing sup­ports nat­u­rally higher polyphe­nol lev­els, which con­tribute to inten­sity, fresh­ness and sta­bil­ity.

“When day­time tem­per­a­tures are high, fruit is cooled overnight and pressed first thing in the next morn­ing,” Basson said. ​“Every step is focused on qual­ity over yield.”

Although South Africa accounts for about one per­cent of global sup­ply, Basson said the local sec­tor has shown strong poten­tial in recent years, with qual­ity at the cen­ter of its growth.

From the Great Winterhoek slopes, he said the com­pany aims to add value to the domes­tic mar­ket by increas­ing the avail­abil­ity of high-grade oils.

“At present, only a small per­cent­age of our oil is mar­keted as pre­mium extra vir­gin olive oil, but our goal is to grow this mar­ket share locally through con­sumer edu­ca­tion and brand devel­op­ment,” Basson said.

He added that Porterville Olives is also look­ing to expand into the United States, cit­ing the lat­est dietary guide­lines that place olive oil and table olives at the cen­ter of healthy eat­ing.

However, Basson said South African pro­duc­ers can strug­gle for recog­ni­tion even at home.

“While cli­mate, polit­i­cal uncer­tainty and ris­ing input costs are real chal­lenges, the great­est pres­sure on our busi­ness comes from prices, and this is largely a mar­ket issue,” he said.

“Much of the imported olive oil from Italy and Spain is of low qual­ity, with some of it blended with seed oils and sold as olive oil blends with mis­lead­ing labels,” Basson added. ​“These prac­tices dis­tort the mar­ket, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for pro­duc­ers of gen­uine extra vir­gin olive oil to com­pete.”

He said the com­pany views its NYIOOC results as a bench­mark as it works to solid­ify the Andante brand among the world’s lead­ing olive oils.

“Receiving awards at the pres­ti­gious NYIOOC World Competition is a use­ful bench­mark for us,” Basson said. ​“It allows us to com­pare our olives with those of pro­duc­ers from around the world and pro­vides an objec­tive mea­sure of qual­ity beyond our local con­text.”

“This inter­na­tional recog­ni­tion gives us con­fi­dence that the care and atten­tion we invest in our groves and har­vest prac­tices trans­lates into oils that are gen­uinely world-class,” he added.