Tuscan Olive Harvest - Nov 15, 2013

Well, we’ve been back in the States 6 weeks, and what a whirlwind of a time it has been!!  Upon our arrival on December 7th, Joan and Bob warmly opened their home to us for 10 days before we moved in with Angie’s sister Teresa.  Teresa and her dog Telly continue to play gracious hostess and host for our crazy comings and goings as we prepare for our move to Portland Maine on February 2^nd.  It has been great to be back in the States, to see those whom we love and have missed, and to have been able to spend Christmas with family and friends! 

There remains a couple of stories for me to publish from our year in Italy, one of which I regularly get questioned about, and that is the olive harvest and the olive oil we managed to bring back to the States.  You may recall our  apartment in Impruneta was surrounded by vineyards and olive groves.  It gave us a front row seat to the fall harvests, however, the special treat for me was getting back to my farm boy roots and actually participating in this  year's olive harvest.

Like many small olive oil producers, our friends Donatella, Andrea, and Maurizio share ownership in a olive grove, theirs (the Pini consortium) consisting of about 78 producing trees.  They harvest olives the same way it’s been done for over 6,000 years – by hand. Large nets are carefully stretched across the ground, and a small hand held rake (see Maurizio’s left hand) is used to strip the fruit from the tree branches.  

Andrea shows how the same tool is attached to a pole to reach the upper branches.  The olives fall into the net, which is carefully gathered up and dumped into large plastic tubs weighing about 45-50lbs when full.

The agroturismos and other big oil producers hire harvesting crews, and utilize pneumatic powered mechanical rakers with which a 4 man crew can clean a tree in just a few minutes.  

Small producers eschew such automation, and Maurizio shows how reaching the olives at the top of the tree is best done the traditional way!

Depending on size and maturity, trees generally produce between 1 to 2 1/2 tubs of olives.  On average each tub yields 2 to 2.5 liters of olive oil.  Once enough produce is harvested it is loaded up on the trailer and taken to the frantoio (olive mill) for pressing into delicious olive oil.

After 4 days of hard work our first load netted almost 1,850lbs of fruit, yielding 110 liters of oil. This year's total harvest was 3,300lbs of olives.  The Pini oil is divided among the owners, with some being given to the volunteer helpers.  All of which is kept for personal consumption.

At the frantoio, the olives are dumped into large crates that are forklifted into the first stage of processing for washing and removal of leaves and stems.  From there the olives are conveyed up to the top of the mill.

The basic process of pressing olives hasn’t changed much in 6,000 years; the mill consists of two heavy stone wheels mounted on an axle and rotating on a spindle.  The olives are dumped in the top and crushed under the massive stone wheels of the mill.  






The difference now is, once the pits are extracted from the pressed olives, the crushed fruit passes through a centrifuge (not unlike one I used to operate to puree blueberries many years ago), where the pulp is emulsified and the water is separated out, yielding fresh, cold pressed, ready to eat olive oil.

It is a customary to dip a piece of toasted Tuscan bread right under the spigot, and that first taste gets you a fiery, peppery explosion that you can never get from olive oil in the United States.  Not unless you bring back your own olio nuovo from Italy!  We brought back 11 liters (in suitcases) and were able to share some with family and friends – a special treat indeed!!