The Story of Ionian Gold
Our roots in Kefalonia
Kefalonia is the largest of the Ionian Islands, and it's been home to the Dellaporta family since around 1500. Our name comes from the village we founded - Dellaportata - a small corner of the Paliki Peninsula where olive trees, vineyards and vegetable fields once stretched as far as you could see.
Our family can be traced back to circa 1500, to the small village of Dellaportata, from which our family name originates.
The estate was vast. Thousands of stremata worked by hand, from sunrise to sunset. The family grew everything the land would give them and the whole community shared in the work and the harvest.
At the centre of it all stood the old house, Venetian in style, built around a stone courtyard with a well at its heart. Kefalonia was under Venetian rule for centuries, and you can still hear it in the dialect, see it in the architecture, feel it in the way life moves here.
Just beyond the house, our family church - Agia Roggi - was built around 1650. It's still there today. For generations, the land, the house and the church were the centre of everything.
For centuries, our family and the surrounding community lived off this land, a place of abundance, self-sufficiency and shared purpose.
In 1953, a devastating earthquake struck Kefalonia. Its epicentre was near the Paliki Peninsula, close to home. It reshaped the island and the lives upon it. Our family moved back to Lixouri, the island's western town, and in the decades that followed, my great-grandfather Nikolaos began dividing the estate between his four daughters.
My Nona Eirini, the youngest, was entrusted with the land surrounding Agia Roggi. This precious piece is what remains today as our family estate - the heart and soul of Ionian Gold.
For over seventy years, the grove sat quiet. The trees grew wild, the soil rested. But the land never stopped being ours.
Nearly ten years ago, we started bringing this land back. We pruned the ancient olive trees back to their core, replanted five acres of vineyards, and built a kitchen garden on soil that hadn't been worked in decades. Our cousin Vladis, whose family runs Sklavos Winery next door, has been part of it from the start.
We farm the way our grandparents did - no irrigation, no synthetic fertilisers, no chemicals. We use natural compost, encourage pollinators, and let the seasons set the pace. It's biodynamic in practice, even if we don't chase the certification.
The grove gives back what you put into it. And what it gives us is a high-polyphenol Greek olive oil with a depth of flavour you can't get from a factory.
Taste our oil
Every bottle of Ionian Gold is pressed and packed on our estate. We pick the olives by hand, cold-press them within hours, and bottle the oil on site. Nothing is blended, nothing is outsourced, nothing leaves this land until it's ready for your table.
We make it in small batches because that's all the grove allows. And we think you can taste the difference - the pepper, the grass, the Kefalonian sun.
We'd love you to try it.