Get to Know Oro di Milas Olive Oil from Turkey
Memecik olive tree photo courtesy Oro di Milas
Türkiye ranks 3rd behind Spain and Italy in terms of olive oil production and yet it isn’t necessarily where United States consumers think high-quality olive oil comes from. Oro di Milas hopes to change that. “There was no reason that we couldn’t produce high-quality olive oil and bring it to the United States as a product,” says Mark Colin, who founded and owns Milas, Türkiye-based Oro di Milas with his wife Emine Colin. “That was the premise originally: create a good olive oil and bring it into the United States and put it up against Greece, Italy, Spain, the places that are more dominant when you think of olive oil.” How good is Oro di Milas? Their reserve oil recently won gold in the USI Olive Oil Competition.
Exploring Turkey
Emine and Mark Colin photo courtesy Oro di Milas
Oro di Milas came about thanks to Emine’s Turkish heritage—she was born and raised in Istanbul. She emigrated to the United States to attend college and dental school, going on to serve as a dentist in the National Guard and U.S. Army Dental Corp. She eventually settled in northern California, where she has an endodontic dental practice.
“I had no connection to Türkiye, other than knowing that it existed, before meeting Emine,” admits Mark, who owns a construction company. The Colins traveled to Türkiye in 2020 so that Mark could meet Emine’s family. The couple also toured the eastern portion of Türkiye, where they fell in love with the beautiful countryside and olive groves. “We were talking about how nice it would be to retire there—there are beautiful olive trees, maybe we could become retired olive farmers,” he says. “As we’re moving closer to retirement we want to be involved in different things.”
In 2021, the Colins returned to Türkiye to look at potential properties to purchase. They ultimately bought 4 orchards in Milas, in southwestern Türkiye, consisting of 500 acres with 8,000-9,000 olive trees. “The real estate prices were incredibly reasonable—a lot of orchards there, including the 4 orchards we purchased, are derelict,” Colin says. “The parents had inherited the property, but their kids didn’t want it because they saw how much work it was, so the orchards are becoming overgrown and fallow.”
Restoring the Orchards
Olive groves photo courtesy Oro di Milas
The Colins hired agronomists to get their orchards back in order. They cleared the land, enriched the soil with manure, treated the trees with chalk to address fly infestations, ran irrigation lines to the trees, and cut roads to the orchards to make harvesting easier.
“Once we had the orchards, then we started talking about creating olive oil. We didn’t have any idea about the world of olive oil, so we did a crash dive into it to learn about it and understand the nuances of the industry,” says Colin. The Colins have developed their business with the assistance of olive oil consultant Anita Zachou.
Memecik: A Prized Olive Cultivar
Olives being hand harvested photo courtesy Oro di Milas
The Colins learned that their trees are a cultivar called Memecik, which has been grown in the Milas region for generations. “It’s an olive that is high in polyphenol content, the antioxidants are pretty consistently high compared to other olives,” says Colin. “The aromas and flavors and pungency of it are what we consistently get as a comment. You open the bottle [of olive oil] and the aroma just fills the room. It’s very pronounced, very strong.”
Milas Zeytinyağı extra virgin olive oil produced from Memecik olives grown in Milas has PDO protection from the European Union, which means that it must meet strict requirements for the harvesting, cleaning, and pressing of the olives, as well as the processing and storage of the oil, to ensure a consistent and high-quality product. In addition, the Colins consciously decided to produce high-polyphenol, early harvest olive oil.
“That became a big part of our philosophy: a high-quality olive oil that also has amazing health benefits,” says Colin. “It has more polyphenols, so it’s more anti-inflammatory.”
“When you do [an] early harvest [olive oil], you do sacrifice—the yield is so much less because the olives haven’t plumped out as much, there isn’t as much oil in them,” he continues. Typically, the average industry yield ratio is 6 kilos of olives to 1 kilo of oil. For Oro di Milas, an average yield ratio is 12-13 kilos of olives to 1 kilo of oil. (Since 2023 was a bad year globally for the olive harvest, Oro di Milas’ most recent yield ratio was 22 kilos of olives to 1 kilo of oil.)
Building a Mill
Emine Colin with olives photo courtesy Oro di Milas
After a small initial harvest in 2021, the Colins decided to build their own mill on-site. Having a mill on-site means the olives are fresher and less prone to damage when they are processed, but it does represent a considerable cost. “My wife and I don’t do things in a short, small way!” says Colin with a laugh. “We wanted to use specific equipment geared to early harvest, high-quality oil. We ended up using Mori-Tem equipment from Italy. The build, with it being a 10 hour time zone difference away [from our home in California] tested a lot of my abilities, especially because of language challenges. My wife speaks Turkish, but not construction Turkish.”
The mill was completed in time for the 2022 harvest, and Oro di Milas Reserve extra virgin olive oil is currently available for purchase from specialty retailers.
Looking Forward
Olive oil bottle with mill in background photo courtesy Oro di Milas
Colin notes that one of the company’s biggest challenges is getting people to accept Turkish olive oil as a world-class product, especially in the United States. He draws a parallel between the current state of Milas olive oil to Napa Valley wine in the 60s—it has the potential to become a highly-regarded product and draw people to the area.
“Along with producing olive oil, we’re focused on bringing tourism to the region,” he says. “The culture is incredible, there are Roman ruins all around us. When you walk through the orchards, you get an Old World sense of the region.” He explains that although Milas is an agricultural town, it’s about a 45-minute drive from an area with beach resorts and a cruise port. “Tourists would love to see this area if we develop tours…we can bring people to admire and enjoy the cultural components of the community that are not getting recognition.”
In addition to the agritourism focus, Oro di Milas promotes Turkish culture on the bottles themselves: the packaging is inspired by the complex symbols local women traditionally wove into carpets. Another cultural initiative is a commemorative box of extra virgin olive oils from Oro di Milas and Pamako, a producer in Crete. The collaboration highlights the cultural similarities between Türkiye and Greece, despite the countries’ historic and current political tensions. A portion of proceeds from sale of the commemorative box benefit charity.
Looking to the future, Colin hopes to expand awareness of Oro di Milas’ unique olive oil, rather than focusing on expanding production.
“We have identified our business model as a small boutique business, and we have no interest in scaling up. We really see our market as people who understand the products we provide—our oil is more expensive because we harvest early and don’t get as much oil,” says Colin. “Our goal is to bring more awareness of the benefits, on a culinary and a health level, of high-polyphenol early harvest olive oil and to bring more awareness of Turkish culture.”