“My grandfather planted the first trees in 1952, on a hillside everyone else had abandoned. He said the stone and the wind would make the olives suffer — and suffering makes the best oil. Seventy years later, those same trees still bear fruit, and he was right.”
The Perini family has farmed olives on the red-earth hills outside Vodnjan since the early 1950s, when patriarch Ivan Perini returned from the war and decided to reclaim the abandoned terraces above the Lim Canal. With little more than a mule and a conviction that Istrian soil held something extraordinary, he planted 200 Istarska Bjelica saplings on land too rocky for anything else.
His son, Tomislav, modernised the estate in the 1980s, introducing Leccino and Buža cultivars while investing in the region's first stainless-steel cold-press system. Under his stewardship, Maslinara Vrh won its first international medals and began exporting to northern Europe and Japan.
Today, Marko Perini leads the third generation. A graduate of agricultural science from the University of Zagreb and trained taster certified by the International Olive Council, Marko balances tradition with innovation. He has expanded the groves to over 2,000 trees, introduced precision irrigation, and built a modern laboratory on-site — all while preserving the hand-harvesting methods his grandfather insisted upon.
The philosophy remains unchanged: respect the tree, harvest at the right moment, press immediately, and never compromise. Each bottle of Maslinara Vrh oil is a direct expression of this Istrian terroir and a family's unwavering commitment to excellence.