Olive Oil Library in Turkey Opens to Celebrate Cultivars and Terroir

Summary

The Yücel Sönmez Olive Oil Library in west­ern Anatolia show­cases dozens of domes­tic and inter­na­tional olive oils to cel­e­brate and pre­serve regional cul­ti­vars. The library, founded by Güven Eken, aims to edu­cate vis­i­tors on the diver­sity of olive oils and pro­mote a coop­er­a­tive spirit among pro­duc­ers, with a focus on sus­tain­abil­ity and local iden­tity.

An olive oil pro­ducer in west­ern Anatolia has opened the Yücel Sönmez Olive Oil Library, a col­lec­tion of dozens of domes­tic and inter­na­tional olive oils intended to pre­serve and cel­e­brate regional cul­ti­vars and the dis­tinc­tive oils they pro­duce.

Inside, vis­i­tors encounter struc­tures fit­ted not with book­shelves but with taps, reflect­ing the project’s pur­pose as a place to taste and learn rather than sim­ply observe.

“The pur­pose of this library is to cel­e­brate and pre­serve olive oil diver­sity, the global diver­sity and, of course, Anatolia’s,” Güven Eken, founder of Sevilma and the Olive Oil Library, told Olive Oil Times. ​“We hope it can become a source of inspi­ra­tion for sim­i­lar ini­tia­tives in other coun­tries.”

According to Eken, olive oil com­pe­ti­tions play an impor­tant role in encour­ag­ing pro­duc­ers to pur­sue qual­ity, but they can also leave less room for the appre­ci­a­tion of the diver­sity of local cul­ti­vars and ter­roirs.

“We all com­pete for fresh­ness, for high polyphe­nols or low acid­ity. But that is not all there is,” he said. ​“Different olive vari­eties, dif­fer­ent geo­gra­phies and dif­fer­ent local gas­tronomies all express dif­fer­ent prop­er­ties of olive oil.”

The idea for the library emerged from Eken’s enjoy­ment of tast­ing oils from dif­fer­ent parts of Turkey and the world, and from his grow­ing con­vic­tion that this diver­sity was being over­looked. He first envi­sioned a one-time gath­er­ing of friends around a tast­ing of oils from across Anatolia and beyond.

That con­cept changed after con­ver­sa­tions with his friend, the late jour­nal­ist Yücel Sönmez, who urged him to cre­ate a per­ma­nent space instead of a sin­gle event. Sönmez was also the first to describe the project as a library. After the jour­nal­ist died last June at age 48, Eken named the ini­tia­tive in his honor.

“I fell in love with the idea of hav­ing peo­ple come over to enjoy this diver­sity of olive oils,” Eken said. ​“As an entre­pre­neur, I couldn’t stop myself and started the project.”

The library was estab­lished in Seferihisar, near İzmir, an area known for its com­mit­ment to local iden­tity and sus­tain­abil­ity. The dis­trict was the first in Turkey to join the Cittaslow net­work, which pro­motes tra­di­tional agri­cul­ture, local prod­ucts and a slower, more con­scious way of liv­ing.

Eken said Sevilma’s work is also aligned with the prin­ci­ples of bio­di­ver­sity and the Slow Food move­ment through the pro­duc­tion of an olive oil rec­og­nized as a Presidium. He pointed to a lit­tle-known cul­ti­va­tion sys­tem in the east­ern Aegean, where wild olive trees are cut and grafted with more pro­duc­tive domes­tic cul­ti­vars such as Erkenci or Memecik.

Over time, he said, these trees become hybrids, retain­ing wild root sys­tems and trunks while pro­duc­ing fruit from cul­ti­vated vari­eties with higher oil yields. Sevilma selec­tively sources olives from these land­scapes, sup­port­ing prac­tices that have endured for gen­er­a­tions and help­ing main­tain the ecosys­tems in which they sur­vive.

The oils enter­ing the library are selected based on sev­eral cri­te­ria, with rar­ity at the top of the list. ​“We would like to have as many vari­eties as pos­si­ble from regions where very unique olive vari­eties grow,” Eken said. Some oils in the col­lec­tion, he added, come from groves of only a few hun­dred trees and may rep­re­sent some of the last remain­ing exam­ples of a spe­cific cul­ti­var.

Sevilma worked with local arti­sans to design and build the space, which also serves as a show­case for local crafts­man­ship. Visitors can taste up to ten dif­fer­ent olive oils dur­ing a visit.

“Our experts explain to vis­i­tors the regions of ori­gin, the ter­roirs and the best gas­tro­nomic matches for each olive oil,” Eken said. The project is also aimed at stu­dents, with uni­ver­si­ties in İzmir already plan­ning vis­its.

Eken said the library is open to other pro­duc­ers as well, reflect­ing a coop­er­a­tive spirit. ​“The whole idea comes from coop­er­a­tion instead of com­pe­ti­tion,” he said.

He believes the project can also change how vis­i­tors view brands, encour­ag­ing them to see each bot­tle as an entry point into a region’s his­tory, cul­ture and agri­cul­tural her­itage. In that sense, the library is intended not as a store but as a place for edu­ca­tion and dis­cov­ery, even though vis­i­tors can learn where to buy the oils they taste.

The col­lec­tion will be con­tin­u­ously updated to reflect new pro­duc­tions and make room for addi­tional local and rare oils. While some entries come from abroad, most are from Anatolia and the wider Turkish olive-grow­ing world.

For Eken, the con­cept is meant to be repli­cated else­where. He said regional olive oil libraries could play an impor­tant role in pro­tect­ing agri­cul­tural her­itage and strength­en­ing appre­ci­a­tion for the diver­sity that defines the olive oil world.

“As an olive oil indus­try, we have the respon­si­bil­ity to pro­duce healthy, high-qual­ity olive oils,” he said. ​“But we are also respon­si­ble for pre­serv­ing the olive tree and olive oil cul­ture, which rep­re­sent one of the most impor­tant her­itages of Mediterranean human­ity.”