Rise and shine
Sunshine Olive Oil named Central Coast Producer of the Year
BRINGING SUNSHINE TO THE TABLE: Located at 1244 Pine St., suite 106A, in Paso Robles, Sunshine Olive Oil’s tasting room and home goods store is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. You can find Sunshine on Facebook under Sunshine Olive Oil, on Instagram @sunshineoliveoil, and online at sunshineoliveoil.com. For questions, call (805) 221-5344.
Richard Delahanty said he cuts open olives nearly every day from late October to 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, Linda, he’s going out to talk to the trees.
A landscape contractor by trade, Delahanty said he and Linda started Sunshine Olive Oil in Templeton with Catherine and Gary Miller about 15 years ago after he helped the Millers 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, the ranch and production manager for the Sunshine Olive Oil Company, 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.’”
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.
The Miller Blend, named after Catherine and Gary Miller, includes green tea, nettle, and black pepper. It costs $24, $40, or $60, depending on whether customers order the 250, 500, or 750 ml bottle.
This year, Sunshine co-milled two olive oils for the first time. Both the lemon and chili concoctions received gold medals from the Central Coast Olive Oil Competition and sell for $24.
“Being a landscape contractor, I like to plant stuff and watch it grow,” Delahanty said. “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 Sunshine ensures olives are milled within four hours of being harvested to maintain their pristine quality.
“We use all organic fertilizers. We’re meticulous about the way we farm and the way we handle the olives when we harvest them,” Delahanty said. “When you get a riper olive, you get a much more mellow taste. Ideally, we try to harvest a little bit earlier.”
Delahanty said harvesting earlier than typical allows for that spicy, pungent taste contest judges seem to love. He said it also increases the olive oil’s antioxidant content, which can reduce inflammation, lower the risk of heart disease, and even fight off certain cancers.
“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% great for you.”
Last month, the ATHENA International Olive Oil Competition in Athens, Greece, awarded Sunshine’s olive oil three medals. The Spanish Oaks Picual took home a coveted double gold distinction, while the 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 by 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, and sells for $24, $40, and $60, just like the Miller blend.
“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.”
Including the six other ranches it farms, Sunshine harvested around 10,000 trees, producing about 2,500 gallons of olive oil last year, Delahanty said.
“4,000 might seem like a lot to your backyard farmer, but it’s a small number in the olive oil business,” Delahanty said. “We’re more like a boutique olive oil company.”
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.
For those seeking a more versatile olive oil, Sunshine’s Lucca is ideal for any culinary use with a medium-intense flavor profile that 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 ml bottle of Sunshine’s Miller Blend, a 500 ml bottle of Sunshine’s Tuscan Blend, and a seasonal gift delivered to their doorstep every January, May, and September. Unlike the Enthusiast membership, which costs $90 every four months, the Connoisseur is $126 each trimester and includes an additional limited-edition 250 ml bottle of olive oil and a bottle of vinegar.
Michael Wolfe is the owner of the Avocado Shack, which sells local, organic fruits and vegetables in Morro Bay. After spending five years searching for the right organic olive oil, he said he’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.”
Every Friday, the Avocado Shack receives fresh focaccia bread from La Teglia in San Luis Obispo. Wolfe invited interested customers to come dip shreds 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.”
This story was originally published June 19, 2025, at https://m.newtimesslo.com/food/sunshine-olive-oil-named-central-coast-producer-of-the-year-by-mid-state-fair-judges-16855233