Learning to harvest olives

Learning to harvest olives off the the tree is not quite as simple as Francesco makes it look. On the other hand, it’s mostly labor intensive and makes you appreciate how valuable olive oil really is.

We used two traditional tools to pick the olives off the branches.  Pinze are like the tongs found in your kitchen, you simply drag the tongs along the branch and the olives pop off, leaving the rest of the branch intact.

You can see this tool here, folded up and balanced upon a rock. (Also notice the super lunch we brought out to the field!)

The other other traditional tool we used is the manina (little hand), which is just what it sounds like.  A small coarse toothed plastic rake which can be attached to any stick to pull the olives from the branches.

Orietta using a manina with her house in the background

Happily picking

The olives of course fall right to the ground, which is why nets must be placed around the tree before it is harvested. Francesco cut reeds first thing in the morning so the nets can be positioned elevated on the downhill side.

Francesco positioning a net around a tree. Notice the slit built into the net, making it easy to wrap around the trunk

Yours truly using the manina on a long hazelnut branch. Notice how the net edge is staked up on reeds, preventing them from rolling out.

After all the olives are picked from the tree, the net is carefully rolled up and the olives transfered to a bin. It’s pretty tricky avoiding stepping on the olives while working on the tree. Crushing the fruit before they arrive at the mill would be bad though, starting a premature oxidation and fermentation.

Here’s Francesco and Herve (who flew in from Belgium just for the harvest like me!) rolling up a net in high spirits:

 

Herve has just taken the net off the reeds, seen here behind his back

The trees must be carefully pruned each year to keep them easy enough to harvest. Olives will not grow on branches which produced olives the previous year. Nevertheless, we used ladders to get up to the top of the trees, which was pretty fun.

Action shot of Ori between two ladders

An aerial view of olives collected in the net

the harvest experience

enjoying an espresso while up in the tree

Castel Madama’s Olives

Orietta and Francesco’s land at Castel Madama contains several types of olive oil tree cultivars. This is important, since different varieties of trees will ripen at different times, imparting a complexity of flavor to the oil. The cultivars have specific names, such as Frantolo, Rotonda di Tivoli (Tivoli is a nearby town),  Brocanica and Rosciola. Some producers will make a monocultivar oil (such as an only Canino cultivar oil), but this is very much the exception.

When the olives are fully ripe on the tree, they take on a purplish, near black color. Other olives, such as Rosciola the spotty red one, and Brocanica will ripen much later in the season looking quite green. (Brocanica looses much of its flavor when harvested too ripe.) Since we harvest the olives all at one time, it’s important to select the optimum time for picking. This moment will have fully ripened olives, as well as more green ones all harvested together. It has been said that an oil consisting of a higher proportion of very ripe olives will give a vegetal taste, while an oil containing more green olives will be more flowery and peppery in its aroma.

Lazio, the region surrounding Rome where Castel Madama is located, has a different collection of olive tree cultivars from other regions in the country, such as Umbria and Tuscany. This is part of what gives oil from here its distinctive taste, besides other factors such as microclimate.

Castel Madama

The House at Castel Madama

Castel Madama is a beautiful town approximately 30 kilometers east of Rome. It is situated in a region famous for its olive oil production and natural springs since the time of the ancient Romans. You can see downtown Castel Madama, which is situated at the top of a small hill, on the banner of this blog. It’s actually the view from the kitchen window, which gives you an idea of how beautifully Orietta’s house is situated.

The “backyard” of the house is actually a field of olive and fruit trees, extending quite a bit down the slope. The olive are a mixture of several varieties, which is important in producing a good oil.

Close to the house a corbezzolo tree has been planted, which had ripe fruit on it during my visit. Corbezzolo makes my favorite honey.

 

 

After a short drive down the road, I took a photo across the valley, in the background left is the olive oil mill where we will go to get our olives pressed.

The view across the valley

Arrigo enjoying an apple which has grown nearby

Arrival at Fiumicino

Rome’s airport is next to the beautiful small town of Fiumicino. On arrival, I was greeted by Orietta, her mother, and her three beautiful boys, Ferruccio, Eugenio and Arrrigo. We drove into Fiumicino to have some calimari and enjoy the beautiful day. A lovely beginning  to my olive oil adventure.

Off to Italy!

Hello there!
My first post here, and very excited to be traveling to Rome today. I’m going to be staying with Orietta and Francesco, producers of olive oil and owners of Oliodivino.it. They have a small group of olive trees in Castel Madama, outside of Rome. The view from their home is the banner of this blog, showing beautiful Castel Madama. It’s my introduction to the world of small production, high quality olive oil. I will be participating in all aspects of olive oil production, from harvesting to milling. Lots to learn this week!
Check back here on my blog to follow along and learn all about olives and olive oil production, as well as other locally produced traditional food products.