The Olive Oil People Go Out Of Their Way For That Barely Makes It To The US

For those looking for the best olive oil brands, there's no greater endorsement than the lengths Elise and Dan Gold, the owners of the Sicilian bakery and sandwich shop, Sebastiano's, traveled to bring a specific one back from Sicily to Portland, Oregon. Following an influential trip to the Mediterranean island in 2019, they returned with a nine-liter tin from a producer they fell in love with. When that ran out, they decided that Sebastiano's, its customers, and the good people of Portland deserved to have it too. 

The Golds decided to start the difficult journey of importing the oil from those same producers and selling it under Sebastiano's private-label in 2019. In 2022, they released their first "vintage" of the oil they imported — a cold-pressed and first-pressed Nocellara del Belice extra virgin olive oil — which lasted them through 2023, when fires and olive shortages kept them from releasing another vintage. A couple of years and another trip to Sicily later, and Sebastiano's hand-selected Sicilian Extra Virgin Olive Oil was back in stock as of September 2025, and remains so at the time of writing. 

Sebastiano's latest release of its Sicilian Extra Virgin Olive Oil is cold-pressed, first-pressed, and made from a blend of three different olive varietals, all native to Sicily. If you live in Oregon, you can visit Sebastiano's in Portland, a Market of Choice store, or a handful of other small retailers to find some in stock. Otherwise, you may even be able to get your hands on some via Sebastiano's website.

Sebastiano's most recent olive oil emerged from a second Sicily trip in January 2025, when the owners met with their olive oil partners — a generations-old olive grower — to taste, blend, and concoct the batch. Unlike the first batch Elise and Dan Gold imported, which comprised only Nocellara del Belice olives, the 2025 vintage also integrates two other varietals: Cerasuolo and Biancolila. All three are indigenous to Castelvetrano, Sicily, where the two first discovered their affinity for the region's olives and their flavors.

Nocellara del Belice is the leading varietal in the 2025 blend, and it's a popular olive to use in the best olive oils for dipping bread, due to its depth of almond, fruit, and pepper flavor with underlying bitterness and spiciness. It can also be found in many popular olive oils used for cooking, although Sebastiano's blend is best used for finishing, salad dressings, or dipping bread because of the oils' naturally bitter finish. The Cerasuolo olives, meanwhile, contribute grassiness, herbaceousness, and more fruitiness, while the Biancolilas complement the full suite of flavors from the other two.

On Sebastiano's Instagram, hype is abound, with one commenter showing the love: "The oil is Ahh-May-ZING. It's spicy & robust!" Under another Instagram post, one customer said, "Picked some up on Saturday and tried it tonight. It's outstanding. Everything I was expecting. Rich, buttery, smooth, simply great. Our go-to finishing oil is Frescobaldi. This is better. And half the price. Thank you for bringing this to Portland!"