November '10

Bringing in our First Olives

At last, after all the hard work we went about collecting our first crop of olives. The olives were only just ripening, but we wanted to ensure we got an early crop using nets, in case high winds blew all the olives to the ground. In future years we will be collecting them from the ground with a spiked rollers.
With nets laid out under the trees, PG & I layed into the trees in front of the almacen, with slim pickings. It was drizzling, with a cold gusty wind blowing. It was very hard work and quite depressing. We got about 25-30 kilos in one mornings picking. At this rate we were never going to collect the 100 kilo's we thought was the minimum amount the cooperativa processed.
The next couple of days were slow, but we were getting quality olives. On the third day I went down to the Cooperativa Sol Debre to book a time for our olives to be processed, when they said "It's a 400 kilo minimum" Eek. "Gulp" I said, "I'll be back in a couple of days for an appointment".
PG & I never thought that we could manage to collect them quickly enough, as we didn't want the first days collections to deteriorate before we had all 400 kilos ready. Then we hit one terrace where the trees were much heavier with olives, including one tree which produced about 25-35 kilos on its own. In the end, we got what we needed and weighed in 436 kilos of olives Because they were young and juicy we only got about 15% rendition to oil, giving 76 lites of extra virgin olive oil with a acidity of 0.4% (that is half the acidity allowable in Extra Virgin oil).
It is lovely. Drizzled on bread, salad, anything. A fruity, green, appley flavour with a smooth creamy texture on the tongue. Village experts tell us that it tastes most of the "Morut/Moruda" variety, and that it is a good quality oil.

On a positive side one of the farmers was telling us it is possible ot get up to 200 kilos of olives per tree for old trees. Certainly we should be able to get 40 kilos per tree in the next year or so, once we have them all properly pruned. That would give us around 1,500-2,000 litres of oil, which is a better financial proposition.

Santa Barbara - Fira d'Oli

We had a quick look round the Sanata Barbara fira d'Oli this month. Some nice looking food and some well dressed up horses were on display. Lots of agricultural machinery including a Kubota tractor stand.
What was interesting was the oil cooperative which produces a small amount of olive oil bottled by variety. The difference between the varieties was astounding, with the morut oil being much greener and stronger flavoured than say a sevilliana oil.