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.
Risca Grande was bought in 2000 by two Swiss families, Bernhard and Zehnder, who took over an olive grove near Santa Iria, in the municipality of Serpa, in the Alentejo, and built a company around it; Andreas Bernhard and Alfred Zehnder run it as managing directors, and the oils go out labelled Olival da Risca. The property covers about 220 hectares, 170 of them olive grove holding over 35,000 trees, some of which the producer puts at up to 800 years old. The planting is almost entirely Portuguese — Cobrançosa, Galega Vulgar, Cordovil, Galega Grada de Serpa, Gamenha, Verdeal, Carrasquenha and Mançanilha — with lemons, limes, tangerines, herbs and spices grown alongside.
Certification came in two stages: organic in 2001, then conversion to biodynamic farming under Demeter guidelines in 2008. The mill stands on the estate, takes only the farm's own fruit, presses it in under four hours from picking, and was substantially rebuilt in 2013; it also holds IFS Food certification.
Reserva da Família leads a range that runs through Selection Original and Mild, Primeur and Antique, and the producer keeps the results year by year: first place at both the BioFach Olive Oil Award and Premio Biol in 2009, second and third at BioFach in 2012, second again in 2016 for Reserva da Família, and in 2017 Extra Gold medals at Premio Biol for Reserva da Família and Selection Original together with a score of 97 out of 100 for Reserva da Família in the Flos Olei 2018 guide.
From the public record: riscagrande.com
A producer account takes a minute — name, mill, region. We attach this profile the same day.
Lab numbers, tree references, harvest dates, a photo — the tap-through form asks only for what buyers pay for.
Auction with a confidential reserve, or a fixed-price allocation. We review it and it goes live.
The catalogue goes to this list before it goes on the site. When the sale closes you get every hammer price from it — including the ones that disappointed.
Two emails. Then quiet until Sale No. 2.
