HISTORY

It was 1926 when the Marquis de Viana (José de Saavedra) invited King Alfonso XIII to stay in his Palace of Garciez, and thus be able to know his olive groves, customs of the people of the place and inaugurate an olive mill that had just ended to build in his Cortijo de La Labor located in the place of La Laguna, between the end of Baeza and Mancha Real. The Marques ordered the King to protect the Olive Oil, since it was a time where he was adulterated in an excessive way.
On January 15 a series of events took place where the people of Garciez participated, representing the field work that was done in the olive grove, so that the King, the President of the Council of Ministers, Governor of Seville, large landowners, etc. see the importance of Pure Oil. After staying all morning these personalities in Garciez, they moved to the Cortijo La Labor owned by the Marquis de Viana, where a new oil mill called Hacienda La Laguna had just been built, to be inaugurated by the King. The oil factory was endowed with the best, most modern and most efficient Olive Oil extraction system of the time. This extraction system had been created by Guillermo Quintanilla, one of the best agricultural engineers of that time. In the oil factory La Laguna all the attendees were explained the operation of this modern and efficient system.
It was here, in this visit of King Alfonso XIII to the province of Jaén, where for the first time a regulation of national production and pure olive oil is requested, since in the olive sector there was a great degenerated crisis because it was usual practice to adulterate olive oil, mixing a small part of olive oil with seed oil brought from other countries.
The King was so surprised that five months after his visit, a decree of the Presidency of the Ministerial Council was published, concerning the olive oil regime. There is documented with press articles and photographs of the time, which in 1926 in the town of Garciez and visit the mill of our farmhouse where a Law is requested to protect the National Production of Oil and Pure Oil.
Thanks to this important event that the Marquis de Viana prepared, he was able to sensitize everyone present about the importance of protecting and fighting for Pure Olive Oil without mixtures, on June 8 of that year the decree is published, regarding the regime of olive or edible oils.
Given the importance of all this historical documentation, we decided that what was going to be our oil mill would be named Cortijo La Labor Oil Factory and that our Extra Virgin Olive Oil would come to light with the commercial name of “HACIENDA LA LAGUNA”.

ABOUT US

The oils factory CORTIJO LA LABOR LTD was born in Puente del Obispo-Baeza in the heart of the province of Jaén from the hands of its owner Juan Félix Ruiz Catena (CEO), a neighbor of the town of Baeza, well known for his faultless business career, for Our Almazara passes the Guadalquivir river watering those lands and their olive trees that flow bright green oil with intense fruity aromas of fresh olives. Where its people with patience, dedication and effort each year bring us to our oil mill one of the most important products of our Mediterranean diet and thus our Extra Virgin Olive Oil is born “HACIENDA LA LAGUNA”.
When we begin to grind our green olives in our Almazara we discover how the oil begins to form with intense green colors full of light, herbaceous, bitter and slightly spicy flavors, in turn fruity that concentrate to give intense aromas of tomato, banana, apple, others like artichoke, green grass and so on, they slowly ripen more and more, until they reach that yellowish green color with sweet and unctuous flavor.
This Extra Virgin Olive Oil is the only Vegetable fat in the world that can be consumed without having to go through chemical processes, one could clearly say that we have before our eyes and in our hands 100% natural olive oil juice.
AROMA, FLAVOR, QUALITY, ESSENCE, LUXURY

PRODUCTS

At present, in our Hacienda la Laguna oil mill we produce four types of oil, two that we bottle and two that we sell to the oil refineries.
EXTRA VIRGIN OIL HACIENDA LA LAGUNA PREMIUM
This oil is collected as soon as we detect that the fruit is beginning to ripen, where the olive is still in its original green color, following very exhaustive fruit collection processes at low temperatures, gentle grinding without raising the friction temperature, a slow shake that makes the droplets of oil come out of their cells and join with the others at a temperature that does not exceed 27º so that the aromas are not lost and a horizontal centrifugal separation finally obtains that high quality that we call PREMIUM .