After you build a profitable casino, luxurious hotel and championship golf course, create an award-winning wine label, manage more than 11,000 acres of farm and ranch land—including 300 heads of cattle—and on top of it all, buy back your original tribal lands, what on earth do you do for an encore?
If you’re the very enterprising, 62-member Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation in Brooks, California. and have land in the Capay Valley known for its Mediterranean-like climate, you make an artisanal100 percent premium extra-virgin olive oil, marketed under the tribe’s distinguished Séka Hills label. “The American consumer is really short-changed when it comes to fresh, virgin olive oil,” says Tribal Chairman Marshall McKay, reflecting on recent studies challenging the purity of many olive oils in the U.S. “So we decided one of our main quests would be to provide that for consumers.”
In line with their philosophy of tending and nurturing the land they inherited and after much research and consulting with the University of California Davis olive center, the Yocha Dehe tribe planted their first olive grove in 2008 – Arbequina olives, a Spanish variety that prospers in Mediterranean-like climates.− on 80 acres of poor, dry soil and in fall of 2011, they reaped the fruits of their labor. They now also grow Picual, Frantoio and Taggiasca varieties in medium-density planting to make a line of Séka Hills single varietal extra-virgin olive oils, all under the seal of approval from the California Olive Oil council.
Seka Hills Premium olive oil is made from estate olives that are milled within hours after harvesting at their on-site in a state-of-the-art 14,000 square foot olive mill. The mill was custom-manufactured in Florence, Italy, and among the first of its kind in the U.S.to process, store and bottle their oil.
What sets this mill apart is that it keeps the olives from the oxygen, thereby preserving freshness and flavor.
It is remarkably affordable at $16 per bottle. To order or to find out the specialty food markets where it is available. Go to http://www.sekahills.com/Olive-Oil
