… is one of the ancient olive groves of Upper Salento in Puglia. The country around is internationally renowned for the production of high quality extra virgin olive oil.

Let’s talk about Olive Trees… Harvesting… and Olive Oil

There is something surprisingly modest about olive trees, given their noble history and legendary reputation, going back far before biblical times.

For an Italian, as for most Mediterranean people, the olive tree has been seen throughout history as almost holy – a symbol of peace, victory, and the endurance of life itself – evoking feelings of bonhomie, vitality, and health. The ancient trees grow in wondrous, tangled ways, with trunks resembling characters in fairy tales. The olive tree is one of the heartiest of all trees on the planet: able to survive salt water, adapting itself to almost any sunny and temperate environment, able to thrive in most soils, retaining its leaves year round, and living in some cases more than a thousand years, occasionally bearing fruit for centuries. These ancient trees, which originated in the region that is today called Turkey, have had a huge impact on all the important civilizations of the Mediterranean for at least 4000 years – providing food, medicinal potions, and the most nourishing of oils. Today there are 500 different “cultivars” or varieties of olives. Italy is the world’s second largest producer of extra virgin olive oil, with 35 different geographical denominations recognized by the European Union. In terms of quality, Italy is considered the world leader.

Puglia has around 60 million olive trees. Among those, 5 million are actually monumental, representing the most antique agricultural arboreal existent landscape. Puglia supplies around 40% of olive oil production in Italy (it is the first region for quantity and quality of Extra Virgin Olive Oil produced per year).

The Harvest

The high quality oils normally are obtained by hand picking the olives directly into a basket (brucatura) – the best method of all but the least efficient and so the most costly. Picking “by hand with a net” (a mano con telo) is the next best method, with 50% more production resulting than when just a basket is used. By hand with a net, with the help of plastic rakes (pettini) is probably the most common method. Electric-powered tools for harvesting olives do exist.

The weather at the time of harvest is of great importance. It’s impossible to pick olives in rain, wind, or fog for many reasons: besides the obvious dangers and difficulties of climbing trees and ladders in wind and rain, moisture can cause the olives to spoil in their crates before they are taken to the mill, or frantoio, for pressing. Generally, one to three people work on a tree, first laying down the net. One person starts on the upper branches, while the other(s) work on the lower ones. With your hands or plastic rakes – you slide the olives gently down the branch, as if sliding beads off a necklace, and just allow them to drop where they may onto the net below.

Both the green and the black are harvested; a mix of the two makes for the most flavorful olive oil. The day’s work progresses amidst gossip, jokes, and the pleasant sound of olives plopping onto the net below in a soft rain of purple, black, yellow and green – sometimes falling at an impressive pace, gently bouncing off your head, rolling down your shirt, or into your pockets. Of course, some – well, many really – do get away, bouncing outside the net, seemingly happy to roll away. It is often family members or friends who come to help pick the olives by hand. It’s a great way to get together. The reward is the joy of being in nature and a part of the magnificent countryside, having some fun and eventually, after the pressing, collecting at least a few bottles of that green elixir that everybody here simply calls… olio. 

The Mill (frantoio) 

Once harvested the olives will ideally be pressed within hours at the nearby frantoio. At the mill, local farmers, friends and helpers meet and chat about their yield, the weather and how this year’s harvest compares with last. But, everyone is very concerned about their olives and often stays there during the whole process out of eagerness and anticipation, and just to ensure that the olive oil they end up with is indeed from their batch of olives. Mills are operated during the day and sometimes part of the night to accommodate the need of farmers to press the olives as fast as possible.

Two things are of primary concern for every farmer when taking the olives to the frantoio: the yield of oil obtained per quintal (100 kg, or 220 lbs) of olives, which varies every year, and the percent of acidity – lower than 0.8% classifies it as extra virgin. The entire milling process must be done at a very low temperature, in order that the nutritious elements, color and flavor are preserved. So, the mills – which are often quite spacious as ventilation is needed – are not exactly warm places to hang out. It’s usually cold outside, and just as cold inside, but nonetheless the mood is usually festive and friendly.

  • taking the weight

The olives go through a few basic processes at the frantoio, all done mechanically – washing, grinding, mixing, pressing, separation and stocking. First the olives are washed, eliminating all the stray leaves and stems.

  • getting washed

Next comes grinding or hammering (martellatura, this is the step when the olives, including their pits, are crushed into an olive paste.

Next comes mixing, a crucial phase that must be done slowly and well to ensure the ultimate uniformity of the oil. This is the moment in which the air is filled with a wonderful fragrance and aroma. After the mixing, comes the pressing,the juices are separated into three parts: oil, vegetable water and pomace (sansa). There is a further centrifugal process of separation in which the heavier water is removed from the oil.

Finally, the precious, unfiltered extra-virgin olive oil pours out of a tube that drains into a steel container where it will be stocked in a cool place before bottling.

Extra–virgin olive oil is the oil that comes out of the first pressing. It is considered one of the few truly healthy oils because it is a mono-unsaturated fat with high amounts of potent anti-oxidants, and a low content of cholesterol. Eating it regularly is now believed to actually reduce the risk of coronary heart disease. Pouring the oil directly over food – such as salads, vegetables, pasta, bread – as well as cooking with it, and even rubbing it directly into the skin produces many health benefits.

Our extra virgin olive oil is been made organically, cold pressed with the minimum of acidity. 2020, we are particularly proud to have achieved a fabulous extra-virgin olive oil of 0.15% acidity on the 14th of October.