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For cen­turies, the Sierra de Mariola has been regarded as a kind of nat­ural botan­i­cal gar­den at the heart of the Valencian Community, in Eastern Spain.

Over 1,200 species of plants, many of them endemic, grow on its slopes and aro­matic and med­i­c­i­nal herbs are the base of her­ber (mean­ing ​“made of herbs”) — a local liquor which is prob­a­bly one of the best-known prod­ucts of the area.

No won­der Jorge Petit and his father, also named Jorge, cred­its the pines, rose­mary and thyme for the fla­vor of their olive oil.

“This is very impor­tant because olives, being fat-sol­u­ble, feed them­selves and absorb all that there’s around them. If there was a fac­tory here, they would absorb smoke. But we have aro­matic plants,” Petit said at his estate at Masía El Altet, where he and his father met a reporter and video­g­ra­pher on assign­ment for Olive Oil Times.

Their ivy-cov­ered 17^th-cen­tury man­sion is placed in the mid­dle of a grove of 14,500 olive trees. The tall cypresses around the house and its pale orange façade give it a Tuscan look.

“I was born in the coun­try­side. I’ve been raised here. And I have really seen these olive trees grow as if they were my broth­ers,” Petit pointed out.

This 73-hectare plan­ta­tion is set in a small val­ley some 10 kilo­me­ters from Alcoi, the main town in the area, and is shared by two nat­ural parks.

To the North, the Sierra de Mariola. To the South, the Font Roja Natural Park, one of the main ker­mes oak for­est reserves in the Valencian region.

“We started plant­ing olive trees back in 1992. Before that, sun­flow­ers and wheat were the main crops here. We were look­ing to grow fruit trees but they suf­fered too much from frost.

Then we noticed that our hun­dred-year-old olive trees per­formed very well here. And we decided to plant more olive trees. Before that, all the oil we pro­duced was for our own con­sump­tion,” Petit explained, as he strolled with his father through the trees.

Being in a pro­tected nat­ural area has cer­tain advan­tages, but it also brings some lim­i­ta­tions. For instance, the oil mill had to be built a few kilo­me­ters away, out of the parks.

In 2003, they started sell­ing their own oil. Just six years later, the renowned French chef Joël Robuchon — who used to spend his hol­i­days in a nearby town — started using it at his restau­rants.

“We were slowly grow­ing, but from 2009 on, our growth was expo­nen­tial. I think [Robuchon] fell in love with our oil because of the com­plex­ity it has. And that’s thanks to the cli­mate of the place we grow our olive trees,” Petit said.

The Alicante Mountains have tra­di­tion­ally pro­duced olive oil as almost every region around the Mediterranean. But this area is far away from Spain’s main pro­duc­ing areas, such as Jaén or Córdoba.

In fact, Masía El Altet was the only award-win­ning pro­ducer from the Valencian Community at the 2018 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, where it won three Gold Awards. This dis­tance to Andalusia may con­tribute to the par­tic­u­lar traits of Petit’s oils.

This is a land of con­trasts. Just a few kilo­me­ters away from the coast, the moun­tain range — which reaches almost (around 4,593 ft) of alti­tude — is cov­ered by snow every win­ter.

At 850 meters (2,788 ft) above sea level, the limit of height where olive trees can grow in the area, Masía El Altet is placed at the turn­ing point where the Mediterranean cli­mate starts receiv­ing con­ti­nen­tal influ­ences. And ther­mal dif­fer­ences may be abrupt.

“We have 22°C (72°F) now. Last night we had around 13°C (55°F) and by noon we’ll be over 30°C (86°F),” said Petit.

“This wide ther­mal con­trast, sud­den day-night changes are really impor­tant for the final qual­ity of the olive,” he added.

Apart from the cli­mate, Petit describes the use of local vari­eties as Masía El Altet’s ​“dis­tin­guish­ing trait.”

Most of the newly planted olive trees of the estate are of Picual vari­ety. However, the cen­te­nary trees that sur­vive in the ter­raced fields belong to four local cul­ti­vars: Alfafarenca, Genovesa, Blanqueta and Changlot Real.

“They pro­duce oils that are a lit­tle bit sour and spicy. So we mix them, we make a coupage, in the quest of a more bal­anced oil,” he said.