Frikkie Naudé’s passion for olives can vie only with his love for the vineyard. He is a wine farmer by persuasion and owner of the prestigious Yonder Hill, on the outskirts of Stellenbosch.

As a pioneering olive farmer in the Breede River Valley, Frikkie and his family learnt olive farming the hard way. Very little information on local cultivation and production was available in those early years.

Frikkie refers to his wife, Danila, as the “silent inspiration and motivation behind our olive oil farming.”

Pikkie Lourens is the olive oil maker and manager of the Pieralisi extraction plant. The 2007 Olyfberg olive oil received the L’Extravergine Award for best blend in the world.

Her husband, André, is the farm manager. He is an experienced farmer with a thorough knowledge of soils and terroir.

There are 20 full-time labourers working on El Olivar. During harvest time people are contracted from the nearby towns for the picking of the olives.