First New-Harvest Olive Oil of the 2025 Season
The excellence of Enzo’s early-harvest oil arrives in Ann Arbor
Some foods are so seasonal that they’re only available for a few weeks a year, even in the Industrial Age. Three of my favorites come to mind. Michigan strawberries in June. Fresh Great Lakes smelt in April. And new-harvest olive oil in the fall! Though I could eat all three of them happily year-round, the natural reality is that the window in which we can enjoy them is relatively short!
New-harvest oils are always extra peppery because of the abundance of polyphenols that are present in high ratios right after the oils are pressed. They’re big, bold, and beautiful, with grassy greenness that gives them a considerable wow factor. Unlike wines, which will generally stay stable in the bottle, olive oil softens in flavor a small bit every day. From one day to the next, you probably wouldn’t notice, but by the time the new-harvest oil is a couple months old, it will have lost a fair bit of its natural peppery pungency. It will, mind you, still be delicious—just less intense than when it first came out of the press. Which means that now, not after the holidays, and not next spring or summer, is the premier time to appreciate its full flavor!
One of my favorite times of the annual culinary calendar has officially arrived in Ann Arbor: The first new-harvest olive oil of the 2025 season has hit the Deli’s shelves! This year it’s a super-tasty oil from the Ricchiuti family—the fourth generation to work the family’s farms. Their oil, packaged under the label Enzo, is named for the great-grandfather of Vincent Ricchiuti, the creative successor to this inspiring family legacy. Made from Koroneiki olives, it’s so good that a few years ago it made Food & Wine’s “Five Favorite New California Olive Oils” list.
The new-harvest oil is fantastic on anything you like to drizzle olive oil on—bruschetta, pasta, vegetables, fish, steak! Use it to take your popcorn to a whole new level. Try it on toasted Paesano bread. Pour it onto a nice slice of good feta or a bowl of fresh ricotta. If you want a great breakfast, toast a thick slice of bread, pour on a bit of olive oil, and spread it with one of the wonderful jams or honeys we have on hand. It’s edgy, engaging, and excellent!
One little-known note on new-harvest olive oil: Although they never taught me this in Hebrew school growing up, in the years after we began working with great olive oils, it became clear to me that the Chanukah miracle is actually tied to the arrival of new-harvest olive oil. Think about it. The priests were waiting for more “holy oil” to arrive at the Temple. In pretty much every culture, what is offered first is always the first fruits of a harvest. What time of year are olives harvested in the Northern Hemisphere? And what holiday happens around the same time? Add all these questions together and the obvious answer is that the Maccabees were waiting to bring the new-harvest olive oil to the Temple to relight the Eternal Light with the “holy oil” we hear about when the Chanukah story is told.
By the way, if you want to taste the oil in action, swing by the Roadhouse for the Cal-Fiorentina dry-aged, pasture-raised steak. Finished with a generous dose of the Enzo new-harvest oil, it’s fantastic. To give some context, La Fiorentina is the classic steak dish of Florence. Combining “La Fiorentina” with the California origins of the oil, we got … Cal-Fiorentina!
Whether you’re at the Deli, the Roadhouse, or your house, if you like attention-grabbing green oils like I do, do not miss this one.
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