The Albanian Coast

Lying just across the Adriatic Sea from Italy and just north of Greece, Albania, known in Ancient Greece and Rome as Illyria, has been producing olive oil for over 2,500 years. Albania's temperate Mediterranean climate and gravelly, mineral-rich terrain provide the perfect growing conditions for its abundant olive groves, and its stunning coastline is home to olive varietals that grow nowhere else in the world. The Kalinjot olive -- the single varietal from which our oil is pressed -- is one such olive.

Because political and ethnic strife has kept Albania closed to the world market for so much of its recent history, its extraordinary olive oil has been unavailable outside of Albania until this point. Illyria Olive Oil thus has the exciting distinction of not just being the first Kalinjot olive oil you will be able to taste, but being the first and only Albanian olive oil you will find anywhere in the United States.