Extra Virgin Oil!

We harvested Olives from the grove at my new house! They are so pretty!

It was a hot, dry growing season and I am told that it was not a good year for olives. However, we harvested over 320 Kilos of olives and pressed 60 liters of extra virgin olive oil.

Signor Raimondo managed the harvest. He works early in the morning so I was not able to capture pictures of the harvest process at my house.

The following pictures are of my cousins, Vincenzo and Alfonso. They are retired businessmen who live in Belgium but have a beautiful summer house in Aragona. These photos illustrate the process of manually harvesting olives. The olives are raked off the trees and dropped on large nets on the ground. The olives are then gathered and transported to the Oleficio (olive press) as soon possible.

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Olificiu!

The olives were pressed the same day that the harvest was completed.

Pressing was efficient and automated, the equipment was stainless steel and manned by technicians.

A fork lift dropped my olives into a hopper and conveyor belts moved to each machine. The olives were cleaned, crushed and stirred and mixed. We were able to follow our olives through each operation. We waited intently until our oil emerged from the press! It is not grocery store oil! The color is green and the flavor is strong. We set it aside to settle and mellow. It should be ready to use in a month.

I am grateful to have found Signor Raimondo. He is very knowlegeable and is passionate about agriculture. He steered us through this first harvest and I am happy to have enough beautiful, organic olive oil to last at least a year.

Signor Raimondo is now in the process of giving the olive trees a much needed trim and getting ready for future harvests!