The Mindful Production Behind an Award-Winning Greek Producer

Flanked by moun­tains and the sea, thou­sands of Koroneiki olive trees dom­i­nate the land­scape of the south­west­ern coast of the Peloponnese penin­sula, with their green and sil­ver foliage glit­ter­ing under the bright Mediterranean sun.

At Little Gypsy Farms, a mod­est but viva­cious pro­ducer jug­gles sev­eral respon­si­bil­i­ties: expertly craft­ing award-win­ning extra vir­gin olive oil, while vocally pro­mot­ing qual­ity food pro­duc­tion and healthy eat­ing.

George Gyftakis’ phi­los­o­phy behind mak­ing olive oil is to let nature work its magic and reap the ben­e­fits at har­vest time, barely inter­ven­ing with the nat­ural growth and devel­op­ment of the olive trees.

“Most farms have arti­fi­cial means to boost pro­duc­tion,” Gyftakis told Olive Oil Times. ​“We find that let­ting nature take its course pro­duces a cleaner, more nutri­tion­ally dense end result.”

“Of course, this means some years will yield less oil,” he added. ​“But many times the qual­ity, acid­ity and fla­vor pro­file will be bet­ter as the tree must work harder in years of light rain­fall to pro­duce fruit.”

Wanderers search­ing for a home, it was only nat­ural that Gyftakis’ ances­tors set­tled down on this side of Peloponnese many years ago.

“Our fam­ily, whose sur­name trans­lates to ​‘lit­tle gypsy,’ has always been a resource­ful tribe,” Gyftakis said. ​“Our ances­tors took to the moun­tains, ful­fill­ing their name­sake with­out a home, before even­tu­ally set­tling on this fer­tile ground along­side the Mediterranean Sea.”

The Gyftakis fam­ily had reached what is now known as Messinia, the ​‘land of fair fruitage’ of the ancient Greeks and one of the most boun­ti­ful areas of the coun­try.

“The unique soils in the west­ern side of the Peloponnese have a his­tory of cul­ti­va­tion dat­ing back 4,000 years,” Gyftakis said. ​“This sea­side land between moun­tains in the south­ern Peloponnese of Greece pro­vided an advan­ta­geous micro­cli­mate, always a few degrees warmer in the win­ter with more rain­fall cour­tesy of the nearby peaks. Here, we began to grow.”

Over the years, the Gyftakis fam­ily has been plant­ing and cul­ti­vat­ing heir­loom Koroneiki olive trees, con­tin­u­ously per­fect­ing their tech­niques and crafts­man­ship.

These days, they find them­selves mak­ing arti­sanal mono­va­ri­etal olive oil with a holis­tic pro­duc­tion approach, ensur­ing that the end result is always on par with the high­est stan­dards.

“In a crowded mar­ket­place, we pro­vide fresh, authen­tic extra vir­gin olive oil with a trans­par­ent har­vest date and ori­gin, pro­duced from an inde­pen­dent farm,” Gyftakis said. ​“Many con­sumers have never actu­ally enjoyed truly fresh extra vir­gin olive oil – one that has not been adul­ter­ated or mixed with oils from dif­fer­ent har­vest years, dif­fer­ent regions, dif­fer­ent vari­eties of olives or raised with­out heavy pes­ti­cides and irri­ga­tion.”

“We con­trol the grow­ing, har­vest, press­ing and bot­tling, achiev­ing a high qual­ity that you can taste,” he added. ​“We process the olives in small batches and store the olive oil in our wine cel­lars on the farms. The land, cold press­ing, grow­ing and stor­age tech­niques have been passed down from one gen­er­a­tion to the next.”

For Little Gypsy, har­vest­ing the olives is not labor but an oppor­tu­nity for a feast, with the whole fam­ily tra­di­tion­ally work­ing together to com­plete the job in time.

“We begin the har­vest as a fam­ily – extended fam­ily as well – and we help to har­vest each fam­ily plot, call­ing on some out­side help dur­ing the har­vest weeks,” Gyftakis said. ​“We view it as tra­di­tion, so we eat, drink and even cook in the fields dur­ing this time.”

“This year, har­vest will be par­tic­u­larly fam­ily-ori­ented as out­side work­ers will not be help­ing as much, with Covid-19 pre­vent­ing many from trav­el­ing dur­ing the har­vest,” he added. ​“We will be call­ing in lots of favors. Covid-19 will pose seri­ous chal­lenges to the har­vest over­all in Greece as out­side help with the har­vest is lim­ited.”

Most days dur­ing har­vest, the care­fully-selected olives arrive at a small, local mill for pro­cess­ing well before night­fall. Gyftakis said the result is a nutri­tion­ally supe­rior extra vir­gin olive oil, high in amino acids and polyphe­nols, yet low in acid­ity with a del­i­cate earthy fla­vor and a full nutty, arti­choke fin­ish.

“I think most peo­ple do not real­ize that it can take more than 11 pounds (five kilo­grams) of olives, cul­ti­vated over the course of an entire year, to pro­duce just one bot­tle of our Gypsy Farms extra vir­gin olive oil,” Gyftakis said. ​“The fla­vor achieved can be as sophis­ti­cated as a fine wine – with­out the snob­bery.”

Devotion and hard work have paid off for Gyftakis, who earned a Gold Award at the pres­ti­gious 2020 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition last May.

Taking pride in his accom­plish­ment, he feels that the credit he received for his Little Gypsy Koroneiki oil is of the utmost impor­tance for small pro­duc­ers.

“Winning a Gold Award has been an amaz­ing recog­ni­tion,” he said. ​“We work all year to pro­duce a har­vest that comes only once so it is a long time in the mak­ing.”

Gyftakis believes the inter­na­tional com­pe­ti­tion pro­vides excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ties to edu­cate the pub­lic on what it takes to craft high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil.

“Educated con­sumers are wak­ing up to count­less ​‘extra vir­gin’ olive oils that are mis­la­belled and sold at exceed­ingly low cost,” he said. ​“I think the more peo­ple learn about olive oil, the more they under­stand what goes into cre­at­ing a qual­ity prod­uct.”

After his tri­umph at the 2020 NYIOOC, Gyftakis is hardly rest­ing on his lau­rels. The suc­cess of Little Gypsy Farms has not changed his ded­i­ca­tion to pro­mot­ing healthy eat­ing and nat­ural food pro­duc­tion.

“Over time, we have become dis­con­nected from the food we con­sume, so prepar­ing meals for your­self gives a new sense of health aware­ness,” he said. ​“The pan­demic has more peo­ple cook­ing from home, exper­i­ment­ing in the kitchen and curi­ous to ele­vate their eat­ing habits.”

“Consumers want to con­nect with inde­pen­dent farm brands that sell directly from the source,” he added. ​“While it has been an amaz­ing year of growth for the com­pany, we have stayed true to our roots shar­ing healthy, pure oil with con­sumers who care about qual­ity, taste and health. We look for­ward to incor­po­rat­ing Little Gypsy Farms as a sta­ple on the kitchen counter.”

From a wider per­spec­tive, Gyftakis believes that authen­tic Greek cui­sine has great poten­tial in many of the world’s largest con­sumer mar­kets, espe­cially as the Mediterranean lifestyle becomes increas­ingly pop­u­lar.

“We have seen the suc­cess of Italy over the decades, cap­i­tal­iz­ing and rais­ing aware­ness on a ​‘Made in Italy’ brand, which has been great for con­sumers and the coun­try export­ing its tra­di­tional food prod­ucts,” Gyftakis said.

“As for the Greek olive oil sec­tor, we think the time is right for build­ing a brand for a new gen­er­a­tion,” he added. ​”Greece has become a sym­bol for a healthy Mediterranean diet, as peo­ple learn about the ben­e­fits of enjoy­ing authen­tic prod­ucts cre­ated by pas­sion­ate grow­ers.”

“We have wit­nessed the expo­nen­tial growth in the United States of sta­ples, such as the Greek yogurt, over the years and we see an oppor­tu­nity to share the same kind of enthu­si­asm for a Mediterranean lifestyle with our Little Gypsy Farms extra vir­gin olive oil.”