Caring deeply about the quality of our oils, your experience with us, and being in harmony with nature
Dear Guest,
We are a cheerful Istrian – Irish family from Vodnjan, South Istria in Croatia, producing high quality extra virgin olive oil for more than twenty years. We create our oils with great passion and, above all, a great respect for nature. We take care of our centuries old and newly planted trees of native Istrian varieties that grow happily in our beautifully positioned olive grove with spectacular views over the Brijuni Archipelago.
Here you can find more info about us and we hope to meet you in person someday soon!
Lena and our family team.
Come and enjoy a free guided tasting of our full range of BRIST extra virgin olive oils in the beautiful and historic town of Vodnjan. The town is known as the home of Istrian olive oil because of its uniquely suited micro climate, its history of olive cultivation since Roman times, and its present reputation for world class production.
October – April
May – September
The Brist Shop is:
Address:
We are close by:
We are open summer and winter. During the summer we are always there so you can just drop by for a tasting during our regular working hours. During the winter however, as a small family business, sometimes we need to step away from the shop for deliveries, work on the grove or in the cellar. Therefore, during the low season, it is a good idea to call ahead to ensure that we are open for you.
Paul: +385 95 562 4111 / Lena: +385 99 592 4156
Such a fun two days, to have world-renouned British chef Gordon Ramsay visit us. He came with National Geographic for his “Uncharted” series to learn from us what all the fuss was about Istrian olive oil – we kindly explained!
While with us we taught him how we prune the trees, challenging him to do it on the old “skalun” ladders that were used in the past. After that we tasted the oils together and Gordon described our Exclusive Selection as the “creme de la creme” of oilve oils and that he will be telling the Italians that they have some serious competion from Istria.
We finished with a meal cooked by Gordon in beautiful Roving.
The heart of everything we do is our olive grove located, just three kilometers from the shop, in the gently surrounding hills of Vodnjan. There is so much to learn about, especially the history of the land, going back to Roman times and before. Perhaps the most magical part is the views over the Brijuni archipelago, especially at sunset.
Ania K & Family • Jul 2019
The Santa Margherita Olive Grove is a very special place on a summer evening. As the sun sets over the Brijuni Islands join us for a walk through our grove. After an expert tasting you can enjoy a light evening meal of Istrian traditional food. As darkness falls and the stars come out enjoy great company by lantern and candlelight in, what for us is a magical place.
Brist Olive are delighted to present a range of extra virgin olive oils. Brist Oleum is a high quality oil, popular with top restaurants and great for both cooking and finishing dishes. Brist Premium offers a choice of three tasting experiences – delicate, harmonious and intense. Finally, there is Brist Exclusive Selection, created from hand picked and hand selected olives grown on century old trees, seasoned a life time in the perfect growing environment of Vodnjan.
BRIST extra virgin olive oils, are all domestically produced from traditionally native Istrian olive sorts. These olives have been grown for thousands of years on this small peninsula with its uniquely suited micro-climate. The combination of perfect sunlight, light rain, nutrient rich soil and fresh sea salted winds give this small region unsurpassed olive growing conditions and now a growing reputation again for world class oils. It is known that during the time of ancient Rome, Istrian olive oil was considered, throughout the empire, to be the finest.
Our new design is inspired by guests wanting to know more about our family and the Sta. Margherita Olive Grove, where our olives are grown. More and more guests are choosing to visit our grove to get a real feeling for what olive oil is really all about and why we are passionate about making it.
Tina Erman Popović is our young and very talented designer, and an Istrian local. What makes her extra special is that she can work well with Paul and me and also have a strong design sense. There is a story behind our design which is about the elements of what we do and what inspires us. You can just enjoy the visual beauty of the bottles or you can dig a little deeper if you wish to – we are always happy to share the story if asked.
Stay with us at our unique Villa Santa Margherita located on our olive grove. The Villa is inspired by our guests who visit us on our tours and tell us what a magical place our grove is. Thus we wanted to create a place where guests can stay, relax and enjoy the beautiful nature and spectacular views of the Brijuni Islands. The villa sleep 8 in total and has a pool, wellness and all modern amenities to the highest quality for a perfect stay.
The layout is designed with every detail in mind for you to have a great holiday. Having an art histrorian/archeologist (Lena), architect (Paul), and engineer (Silvano) in the family gives us the feelings and ideas to make the very best of what is an inspiring location. Though we rarely agree on everything, be sure that every part of the experience has been thought through.
As much as awards can be considered important in the process of assessing the quality of an olive oil, they are just part of the picture. Beside awards is analysis, whether that be chemical or sensory. Most importantly, however for us, is trusting our own instincts and experience and above all listening openly to the feedback of our guests.
“Highlight of the vacation”
We learned a lot about olive oil and had a wonderful day in the shop and on the tour with Paul and his family! It was definitely a highlight of our vacation. You seldom see such a passion for a product and you can feel it immediately when trying it and in the atmosphere.
Thanks Paul and family!!!
Brist olive oils have been awarded in the EvoOleum “World top 100” awards in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 and most recently have received a 3rd Gold Award in the prestigious New York olive oil competition in 2022 following successes in 2018 and 2020. We have also featured 10 times in world guide book Flos Olei. Most of all we very proud of Silvano’s receipt of a lifetime services to olive culture award of which he is very deserving.
Come, do a free tasting with us in Vodnjan or visit our grove and learn why this region is so special for olive oil.
As a family we love sharing our passion for high quality extra virgin olive oil, ethically locally produced food and why these things mean so much to us. It is our great pleasure to share with you, your family or group as much knowledge and insight as we possibly can. We are deeply appreciative of the positive feedback we have received to date and hope that your experience with us will be equally positive, educational and fun.
From the generations of our family gathering the olives at harvest time, to our oil reaching your family table, the ethos of Brist remains professional but ultimately a family, and a family friendly endeavour. From our family to yours, we wish you great enjoyment of our wonderful, healthy, unique and naturally produced extra virgin olive oils.
One of the things we love most is getting to share time with you and your family.
For sure we are totally passionate about olive oil but the nicest thing for us is sharing what we do but, also importantly, listening and learning from you and your family. We certainly know a lot about oilve oil but we also know that the life, like nature, is deeply complex and we love to hear your thoughts to help us better understand it.
We look forward to meeting you and your family in person – there is much to learn and share.
A Special Guest Visit We were delighted to receive Gordan’s request to come and visit us to learn what all the fuss is about Istrian extra virgin olive oil. The two days we spent together were just fantastic and we learned so much from each other, finishing off with Gordon …
Intenso has joined it’s fellow premium brist olive oils Delicato and Santa Margherita in being awarded in the World’s top 100 oils at EvoOleum world guide book. Big congrats to Silvano and Lena for crafting such beautiful oils. Intenso on our Webshop
As a family we were greatly honored to be asked by the BBC to represent the olive oil experience in Istria. Such a professional team and really fun to work with, it was so encouraging that they really wanted to get a feel for us as a family and what …
