Richard Delahanty said he cuts open olives nearly every day from late October until early December to see if they’re ready to be harvested. He joked that he’s in the field so often he’ll sometimes tell his wife he’s going out to talk to the trees.
“We use all organic fertilizers,” Sunshine Olive Oil’s ranch and production manager said. “We’re meticulous about the way we farm and the way we handle the olives when we harvest them.”
Delahanty said harvesting earlier allows for that spicy, pungent taste contest judges seem to love.
“When you get a riper olive, you get a much more mellow taste,” Delahanty said. “Ideally, we try to harvest a little bit earlier.”
That early harvest also increases the olive oil’s antioxidant content, which can reduce inflammation, lower the risk of heart disease, and even fight off certain cancers. Antioxidants aside, olive oil contest judges from all over the world seem to agree that the Templeton olive oil producer makes award-winning oil.
On April 23, the California Mid-State Fair’s Central Coast Olive Oil Competition judges named Sunshine Olive Oil the 2025 Olive Oil Producer of the Year.
All 11 of Sunshine’s olive oil entries medaled. Its Spanish Oaks Picual won Best of Class Picual, and its Blue Oak Grove won Best of Class Italian Blends Medium. Eight of its olive oils achieved gold medals, and its Miller Blend received a silver.
This year, Sunshine co-milled two olive oils for the first time. Both the lemon and chili concoctions received gold medals from the competition.
The Miller Blend, named after Catherine and Gary Miller, includes green tea, nettle, and black pepper.
A landscape contractor by trade, Delahanty said he and his wife, Linda, started Sunshine Olive Oil in Templeton with the Millers about 15 years ago after he helped them with some trees in their front yard.
“They liked olive trees just for their aesthetics, so they had somebody plant a bunch of them all over the place,” Delahanty said. “Then, I started working for them. The olive trees grew, and we pruned them. Then, they started producing. One year, I said, ‘Have you ever thought about doing something with the olives?’ [Gary] said, ‘Like what?’ I said, ‘Maybe we can make oil out of them. Let’s just see how it goes.'”
It’s grown from that to include harvests on six other ranches. Last year, Sunshine produced about 2,500 gallons of olive oil, Delahanty said.
“On the original ranch, there were probably 250 olive trees at the most,” Delahanty said. “With that property and a few others [the Millers] now own, we’re at about 4,000 trees, and we’re just about to plant 4,000 more; 4,000 might seem like a lot to your backyard farmer, but it’s a small number in the olive oil business. We’re more like a boutique olive oil company.”
Delahanty said Sunshine ensures olives are milled within four hours of being harvested to maintain their pristine quality.
“With so much of what you buy, you don’t know what goes in it,” Delahanty said. “If you go to the store, they have olive oil blends and light olive oils. When you start looking into what those are, you’ll see they’re mixed with canola oil and have very little olive oil. We know exactly what goes in our olive oil. We don’t put chemicals on any olives. Everything that comes off those trees is 100 percent great for you.”
In May, Sunshine’s olive oil was awarded three more medals, this time by the ATHENA International Olive Oil Competition in Athens, Greece. Its Spanish Oaks Picual took home a coveted double gold distinction, while its Miller and Tuscan blends followed up with gold ratings.
Like the Miller Blend, the customer-favorite Tuscan blend also includes a pinch of black pepper but with a flavor profile balanced with green olives, freshly cut grass, almond, and artichoke. The dark green colored oil is made from a mix of frantoio, leccino, moraiolo, and pendolino olives.
For customers in search of a delicate olive oil they can use every day, Sunshine’s leccino is perfect for cooking, baking, and adding to salad dressings. The flavor profile consists of a combination of sweet, freshly cut grass, almond, and pepper.
Ideal for any culinary use, Sunshine’s Lucca is perfect for any customers seeking a more versatile olive oil. The Lucca’s medium-intense flavor profile includes aromas of ripe banana and a mild nutty green almond flavor.
Last month, the grove owners started the Sunshine Olive Oil Club. Members receive a 500-milliliter bottle of Sunshine’s Miller Blend, a 500-milliliter bottle of Sunshine’s Tuscan Blend, and a seasonal gift delivered to their doorstep every January, May, and September.
“We harvest and prune by hand. We do have tractors and mowers, but there are a lot of times you have a weed eater out there and you’re just weeding. You can’t get the tractor everywhere. We’re not a big, corporate farm. There’s always a lot of handwork,” Delahanty said.
Michael Wolfe—the owner of the Avocado Shack, which sells local, organic fruits and vegetables in Morro Bay—said he spent five years searching for the right organic olive oil. His shop’s been selling Sunshine for about a month now.
“It has that grassy, peppery flavor that you want in a dipping olive oil,” Wolfe said. “The quality is exceptional. And it doesn’t take much. You only need to dip a small amount.”
Wolfe invited interested customers to come dip some fresh La Teglia focaccia bread—delivered every Friday—in Sunshine’s Miller Blend.
“What Richard is making is a product that’s pure, as it was in Greece when it was first made,” Wolfe said. “This stuff’s worth every penny.” Δ
Reach Staff Writer Reece Coren from the Sun, New Times’ sister paper, at rcoren@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Winning Images 2025.