Olive Auction built this page from public records so buyers can find the estate. Its own people can claim it at no cost — complete the story, list lots, answer buyers.
After a claim, we confirm by emailEverything here comes from public sources — award lists, certification registers, the territory inventories. The rest of the story — the family, the grove, the real age of the trees, this year's lab sheet — only the mill can tell, and it is the part buyers bid on.
Donika Olive Oil presses one Albanian cultivar, Kalinjot, from groves in the hills behind Vlorë — Skrofotina, Cerkovina and Travllazer, as the producer names them — and dates the trees themselves to 15th-century plantings. The name reaches back to the same century: Donika Arianiti, a noblewoman of the south, married Gjergj Kastrioti Skënderbeu of the north, and by the legend the brand recounts, guests at their wedding at Kanina Castle tasted southern olive oil for the first time, after which the couple set a custom of newlyweds planting ten olive trees. Bianti Danaj, who grew up in Vlorë and moved to the United States in 2016, worked the idea up from a college thesis in 2020 and launched the label in 2023.
The method is published step by step: olives picked in the early morning and carried to the mill in three-hour intervals, milled to paste and malaxed at a controlled 22 to 24 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes, then settled in underground stainless steel tanks kept dark at 18 to 20 degrees, resting through three ten-day periods before bottling. The 2024 harvest ran from 30 October into mid-November. The oil is certified organic to both EU and USDA standards, and a 2024 trade release put its polyphenols at 810 mg/kg. At the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition it took Silver in 2024 and Gold in 2025 and 2026.
From the public record: donikaoliveoil.com · bestoliveoils.org · specialtyfood.com
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