On Menorca, an Olive Oil Identity Shaped by Soil, Sea and Wind

Summary

Son Felip in Menorca is work­ing to cre­ate a unique pro­file for its olive oil through regen­er­a­tive agri­cul­ture and bio­di­ver­sity, earn­ing recog­ni­tion at the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition. The far­m’s strat­egy includes early har­vest­ing, soil regen­er­a­tion, and adapt­ing to the island’s envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions, con­tribut­ing to the dis­tinc­tive qual­ity of its olive oils and other agri­cul­tural prod­ucts.

Nestled in north­ern Menorca, one of Spain’s Balearic Islands, Son Felip is work­ing to define a dis­tinc­tive island pro­file for extra vir­gin olive oil through cul­ti­vated bio­di­ver­sity and regen­er­a­tive agri­cul­ture.

The pro­ducer recently won a Silver Award in its debut at the 2026 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, earn­ing its Koroneiki mono­va­ri­etal a place among the world’s best olive oils.

The farm fol­lows an early-har­vest strat­egy, milling olives in its own facil­ity imme­di­ately after pick­ing while they are still green. The approach is shared by many pro­duc­ers oper­at­ing under the IGP Oli de Menorca des­ig­na­tion, which sets par­tic­u­larly strict stan­dards for extra vir­gin olive oil.

“For us every­thing begins in the soil. When the soil is alive every­thing else improves: the trees, the land­scape and also the qual­ity of the oil,” Víctor Labori, direc­tor at Son Felip, told Olive Oil Times. ​“In the case of olive oil we see this clearly in the polyphe­nols. As the soil has grad­u­ally regen­er­ated we have observed a pro­gres­sive increase in the polyphe­nol lev­els of our oils. Currently we are around 540 mil­ligrams per kilo­gram, which is very high.”

Set on an island renowned for its nat­ural envi­ron­ment and pro­tected as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, the farm is shaped by the sea, salt and winds that define Menorca. Labori said those con­di­tions con­tribute to the sin­gu­lar pro­file of Son Felip’s olive oils.

“The sea is always close in Menorca. Its pres­ence mod­er­ates tem­per­a­tures and adds fac­tors such as salin­ity, humid­ity and marine winds,” he said.

Humidity, he added, requires care­ful grove man­age­ment. Proper prun­ing is essen­tial for main­tain­ing ven­ti­la­tion, help­ing trees breathe and pre­serv­ing their health over time.

Northern winds, includ­ing the Tramontana, are another defin­ing fea­ture of the island. Labori said they some­times carry inland salin­ity from the sea, a phe­nom­e­non known locally as roci d’en terra, a fine salty spray that can affect veg­e­ta­tion.

“In our case we are for­tu­nate to be located in a val­ley, which par­tially pro­tects us from the strongest wind episodes,” he said. ​“Even so, we believe that this extreme envi­ron­ment is part of the char­ac­ter of the land­scape and prob­a­bly also influ­ences the pro­file of our oils.”

Adapting to those con­di­tions has shaped the far­m’s devel­op­ment, which also pro­duces a range of Mediterranean fruits, veg­eta­bles and other spe­cial­ties. ​“We learned how to work hand in hand with the envi­ron­ment, and not against it,” Labori said.

Farming on an island requires resilient sys­tems, espe­cially as dry years grow hot­ter. Water man­age­ment is cen­tral, and Labori said the farm uses effi­cient drip sys­tems and irri­ga­tion strate­gies such as key­line design to improve infil­tra­tion and retain mois­ture in the soil.

Keyline design is a land­scape-plan­ning approach intended to improve water dis­tri­b­u­tion across farm­land by slow­ing runoff, increas­ing infil­tra­tion and enhanc­ing soil mois­ture and fer­til­ity.

Son Felip also main­tains plant cover through­out the year to shield the soil from extreme heat, improve its struc­ture and boost its capac­ity to hold water.

“All these ele­ments – the sea, the wind, the light and the soil – end up form­ing part of the char­ac­ter of the land­scape and the char­ac­ter of the oil,” Labori said.

The project is the result of a long-term vision devel­oped over more than a decade. Labori said the aim from the out­set was to pre­serve an excep­tional envi­ron­ment for future gen­er­a­tions and build one of Europe’s lead­ing bio­di­ver­sity-focused regen­er­a­tive farm­ing projects.

The estate is home to sev­eral Mediterranean olive vari­eties, includ­ing Arbequina, Argudell and Koroneiki, selected for their adapt­abil­ity and com­ple­men­tary sen­sory pro­files.

“Behind a bot­tle of olive oil there is a great deal of work through­out the year, from the field to the mill,” Labori said. ​“An inter­na­tional recog­ni­tion such as the NYIOOC award con­firms that we are on the right path.”

Among the farm’s most dis­tinc­tive efforts is the preser­va­tion of a native mil­lenary olive tree found on the estate. Son Felip is genet­i­cally repro­duc­ing the tree to con­serve the cul­ti­var and develop what it calls the ​“de la terra” vari­ety, a locally rooted olive with a highly spe­cific Menorcan iden­tity.

Labori described it as a rus­tic vari­ety adapted to wind and drought, with low yields but notable qual­i­ta­tive poten­tial. He said the tree appears in 19^th-cen­tury descrip­tions by Archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria, rein­forc­ing its his­toric con­nec­tion to the island.

The vari­ety was first iden­ti­fied in 2014. After olive oil analy­sis, Labori said, researchers found that no reg­is­tered vari­ety existed under that name. Progress has since been made toward recog­ni­tion and offi­cial reg­is­tra­tion, con­firm­ing its value as local agri­cul­tural her­itage.

Production remains lim­ited, but the pro­ducer said the olives yield a high-qual­ity oil with intense fruiti­ness and bal­anced bit­ter­ness and pun­gency. Labori described its sen­sory pro­file as wilder, more veg­e­tal and less sweet than that of more com­mer­cially pro­duc­tive cul­ti­vars.

Recovering ancient vari­eties is only one part of the broader work under­way at the farm. Labori pointed to other locally adapted species, includ­ing Xeixa wheat, the ver­mella menorquina cow and the Balearic black bee, as exam­ples of agri­cul­tural her­itage shaped over cen­turies by the island’s ecosys­tem.

Son Felip’s olive grove is inte­grated into a diver­si­fied agri­cul­tural sys­tem with Menorcan cows, chick­ens, horses, bees and other crops. The farm says this approach improves soil fer­til­ity while increas­ing resilience against pests and dis­ease.

“We try to move away from mono­cul­ture and build a diverse agri­cul­tural sys­tem,” Labori said. ​“We also believe that an island should aspire to a cer­tain degree of food auton­omy. Producing high-qual­ity food locally is an impor­tant part of that objec­tive.”

That phi­los­o­phy aligns with a local cul­ture in which islanders often favor local food and spe­cial­ties over imported prod­ucts. Labori said Son Felip has found a recep­tive audi­ence on Menorca that val­ues that work.

The farm also hosts estate vis­its, olive oil tast­ings and other on-site expe­ri­ences, while offer­ing guest stays in a pri­vate villa that immerses vis­i­tors in the regen­er­a­tive farm­ing project. The ini­tia­tive adds a tourism dimen­sion to the estate’s agri­cul­tural mis­sion.

“Many are sur­prised to dis­cover how an agri­cul­tural project can inte­grate with the land­scape and offer an authen­tic expe­ri­ence of the Menorcan coun­try­side,” Labori said.

He said the broader goal is to change how peo­ple under­stand olive oil on the island and beyond. ​“We would like to con­tribute to chang­ing that per­cep­tion and help olive oil be increas­ingly under­stood for what it truly is: a land­scape turned into fla­vor.”