Proper Tuscan olive oil: grassy, artsy, a bit rude. Grown on land that everybody else had given up on.Proper Tuscan olive oil:grassy, artsy, a bit rude.Grown on land that everybody else had given up on.

Olente is a collective: a cook turned farmer, a designer-gardener, an actual agronomist (somebody had to know what they were doing) , and a rotating cast of friends who owe somebody a favour.

We rent old groves, or simply take over their care, from old grandpas and grandmas who can't work them any more. We pay in rent, in oil and in sweat.

This is the Maremma, the corner of Tuscany the Etruscans loved and the postcards skipped. The land is rough, but the dinners are long. We prune in February and pick in October: ladders, nets, wasps, cold hands and a banquet every lunch, because life's too short.

We're here to make a living. We're here to have a good time doing it. The trees seem to like it.