The Best Olive Oil in Spain Comes from a Small Village in Granada

The Best Olive Oil in Spain Comes from a Small Village in Granada

Ácula does not appear in the tourist guides. It is a village in the province of Granada, on the road to Ventas de Huelma, with an almazara (olive oil mill) that twenty years ago nobody knew. Today that almazara produces one of the most awarded oils on the planet.

This is the story of O-MED.

Two Pharmacists and a Father with Ideas

In 2004, Juan de Dios García had the opportunity to buy a small almazara in Ácula. The family, originally from Cambil (Jaén), was living in Málaga at the time. Juan de Dios was not an oil producer by profession, but he came from olive country. He knew what a good oil was.

What he probably did not know was that his two children would drop everything to join the project.

Paula was studying Pharmacy and working at a multinational in Madrid. Juande was on his Erasmus year in Vienna, also training as a pharmacist. When their father proposed they join, both said yes. They swapped lab coats for overalls at the almazara.

That scientific training turned out to be an enormous advantage. They understood chemistry, processes, and analysis. They applied to olive oil production the rigour they had learned at university. Every variable controlled, every parameter measured.

The O-MED Method

What O-MED does is not revolutionary in concept. It is executing what everyone knows should be done, but almost nobody does because it costs money and effort:

Harvest in October. Not November, not December. October. The olives are green, yield less oil per kilo, but contain the maximum polyphenols and aromas.

Harvesting over 3-4 days. The entire production is picked in less than a week. No olives left waiting in the yard.

Immediate milling. From branch to tank in a matter of hours. The olives are not stored, do not ferment, do not heat up.

Cold extraction. Always below 27 °C.

Stainless steel tanks with controlled atmosphere, no contact with light or air.

The result: an oil that smells of the countryside, tastes of freshly picked olives, and retains everything nature gave it.

The Awards

The numbers speak for themselves:

• Premio Alimentos de España — won twice: 2016-2017 campaign (bitter green fruity + special award) and 2020-2021 campaign (sweet green fruity + special award). This is the award granted by the Ministry of Agriculture to the best extra virgin olive oil in the country. Winning it twice is exceptional.
• Der Feinschmecker — the leading German gastronomic magazine named it number 1 in the world in 2021 and number 2 in 2015.
• Mario Solinas — first grand prize from the International Olive Council in 2017 (also third grand prize in 2013).
• Flos Olei — selected among the top 20 in the world in 2016. Best intense fruity oil in the world in 2014.
• Iberoleum — score of 97.40 out of 100.

Today O-MED exports to more than 30 countries.

Granada on the Olive Oil Map

When you talk about olive oil in Spain, you think of Jaén. And rightly so: Jaén produces more olive oil than anywhere else in the world. But producing a lot and producing the best do not always go hand in hand.

Granada has historically been in the shadows. Fewer hectares, less volume, less visibility. But almazaras like O-MED in Ácula and Quaryat on the slopes of Sierra Nevada are proving that the province has enormous potential, precisely because its conditions — altitude, microclimates, adapted varieties — produce oils with a personality of their own.

O-MED did not put Ácula on the map by chance. It did so because a family from Cambil applied scientific rigour to a small almazara and decided that yield was less important than quality.

What You Can Learn from This Story

You do not need to be from Jaén to make a great oil. You do not need a thousand-hectare estate. You do not need a centuries-old brand. You need quality raw material, a flawless process, and the decision to make no compromises.

That is what is inside every bottle of O-MED. And that is what you notice when you taste it.