Making Olive Oil in Italy - the real thing

I was talking about my family's hobby with ASSEMbler and he told me to write about it here.

This post will be filled with mistakes. I don't care! I'm sure you'll be able to understand anyway!

First, I live in Italy. All around my country, Italians harvest olives to produce oil and olives under water and salt. Every region has a different "cultivar" (kind of tree) that gives a different oil-taste. Our cultivar is called Taggiasca, brought in the past by monks. Every place has a different ground-sun-water etc that gives different taste.
Which one is the best? Many says that our oil, from around Imperia, it the best in the world. I say, it depends from tastes.

I live in Diano Marina, by the sea, near Imperia. All our trees are well over Imperia, about 200 meters from the sea level. The higher you are, the better is the oil: no salt from the sea,cooler (less parasites) etc.

My family has always made oil here. My mother's family produces oil from at least 300 years. Now we have different works, but we still produce oil for the joy of having a great treasure.

I may tell you how the various producers here make oil industrially, I may tell you many things that would make anyone sad. But I will simply tell you how we do it, how it should be done. No, I'm not going to sell you one bottle of oil after all this

Beware, an industrial producer will sell you Olive oil at 4 euros/liter. A tiny producer, hobbist, will sell it for 10-15 euros. Ours is 24 euros. Again, all this to let you know that what you're going to see has big expenses. If you don't have passion, you wouldn't do that this way. Chemistry would cut prices by half at least. Using a public mill, the same.

Ok.

How we produce oil.

Our country is very steep, with many "steps" on the mountains, all handmade in the past centuries. These walls, made of stones brought by hand, are called "fasce" or, in dialect, "maxei".

Check these pictures:






This place is called Fundega. Is just over our mill. We have various areas that produce different oils. Same "cultivar" but different taste due to a different sun exposure, water etc. Fundega is rich of natural water sources. We're lucky enough to use only this water for every moments of the oil making process.
Fundega is between Borgomaro and Aurigo towns, two very small medieval towns that were once linked by a stone road. On that road, various small chapels reminded to travellers the faith, very strong in these hard, dark and cold places. Chapel is "Cappella" in Italian. That's were our farm's name comes from.
Back to the picture.
This place isn't very steep. It's easier to harvest. The tree on the center-left of the first picture has been cut: the lower the trees are, the easiest are to harvest. But the steeper is the ground, the highest the trees must be to get enough sun..
I've made these pic while harvesting. I will just talk about harvesting, and we harvest from november to february, but believe me, there's always something to do during the year to keep the trees and places cleen and healty!
In the second pic you can see a "fascia" (the wall). These must always be reinforced, since it's just one stone over another.
Can you see that hole inside the "fascia"? It's called "supenna", or "casella". Check google for Nuraghe or Trulli to understand what I'm talking about. This small hole was used just to keep items, like nets and so on. But bigger "caselle" were used for living too, during harvesting time.
Very ancient, believe me!
Back to the first picture.
Can you see the nets? Well, basically you put the nets under the trees, keeping in mind the order: every net must be placed with borders over another one, or linked somehow. Kept inplaces with stones. When a net is filled with olives and woods, you must make a gorup of olives. Grouping olives means that you have to lift a net and all the olives will rumble on the following. If there is a hole in the net, if the net is not linked with another one, you can loose a lot of olives.

This is Aurigo btw:



How do you get the olives down from the trees?

You hit the branches in a particular way with a long wooden stick, handmade.



When olives comes down (how easy is to remove them it depends on maturity, temperature etc), you will get something like a shower of small stones. But it's a great satisfaction.

But trees can reach various meter in height...so get ready to climb, without protections!!!



...up and up...with your stick...



Can you spot him (Vincenzo)? But beware, you can't climb a tree if you don't like it. People who do this work, love to climb trees. It's a contest between you and the rest of the world!
That tree is quite old too. We have got some trees that are a few hundred years old.

When you hit the tree with sticks, this is what you get on the nets:



You have to group the olives and manually remove the biggest woods, stones etc.
Nets will have holes that you have to repair, and will be filled with woods and briers.
Then you put all the dirty olives in plastic boxes. Beware, usually everyone uses bags, that can contain also 60 kg of olives. This will make the heat grow and the fruit will become acid quickly. Using plastic boxes is time consuming, but keeps the fruits cooler. Oil must be made as soon as possible to get the best possible product. The more you left the olives grouped, the more the acidity grows. This means that you must have a lot of people working all at once.

Boxes filled, you go to our private mill.

But I'm going to tell you more later. I would love some comments first


My father.

 

Awesome. If and when I visit Italy, I will definitely stop by that town and pay a visit .

 

A world away.

Wonderful craft. Reminds me very much of the avocado groves near where my wife grew up. The finer (not mass-produced) groves also take special care of their crop to prevent them from piling up, heating up, and producing off flavors.

~Krelian

 

Stunning and beautiful.

Thanks for taking the time to share your genuinely interesting story with us, much appreciated.

 

I like that landscape, you're not far from France, right?
What are you doing with all your production?

I found your olives trees, beneath and around the cloud:
http://maps.google.fr/maps?f=q&hl=f...43.980463,7.927408&spn=0.007303,0.014591&z=16

 

. When i get Old I want to start making either wine or oil!

 

I love it A very, very interesting craft, and Italy is so beautiful in itselfs

 

Very nice pics... a large part of my country is covered by olive trees, and i personally own some. :nod:
Here are some pics...
http://www.amfissa.gr/amfissa/site/photogallery.asp

 

Google maps rules! Check these:

Here you have our mill with restaurant!

All the trees over the street, are Fundega.
Under the street and mill you've got Boioli.

This is Ciaxe

This is Vallone, over Candeasco

These are the areas we have already harvested. We're currently harvesting the second part of Vallone.

Today we have made some oil from Vallone.

And this is how the oil looks like when it gets out of the mill:



Made today

 

Nicola, you should offer some bottles here in the marketplace.
Iam sure some of us would like to buy some real fresh olive oil.
i like to cook with olive oil. it is very tasty and healthy

 

So I guess a part of your production goes into the restaurant, what about the rest of it?
Do you have any problems with the trees like insects or fungus?
I agre with Fire-WSP, now that the all thread is salivating, you'll be forced to sell some bottles...

 

We have 2 restaurants and 2 hotels. My father has always sold some 1 year old (sweeter) oil in the hotels, to an high level restaurant in Villefranche Sur Mer (France - La Mere Germaine) and gave new oil to friends as gift. I've finished my studies this summer and went in october, for the first time in my life, in the country to help my father producing oil. I've immediately realised that we have a treasure that must be let known publically with a good marketing strategy. Quantities are limited. It's all about quality. Now I've just begun to sell it around: eg I go every friday to a friend's restaurant to let everyone taste the new oil and then sell it. It's just the beginning, we still don't have final labels, only protos, demos, evaluation bottles.

As for fungus and trees insects, we have them. We fight them without getting out of the "bio" way of working. We have some olive flies. The only way to fight them is by poison (rogor). It will not change the taste, but it's a poison. So we don't use it. We prefere to loose 50% of the fruits and get a little bit of acidity than using poisons. PH is under 0.3 anyway. Today's oil has an acidity level of 0.2!

Now I need some time to show you all how we produce oil after harvesting. Stay tuned!

You know, the best part of all this, it's not selling, it's not thinking about money. If you think about money, you stop producing oil this way.
It's making something that you love, that everyone will love, that makes this hobby unique!


Today's olives, from Vallone. Dark-red fruits, due to maturation. The taste is sweeter than the oil made with green olives.

 

Umm makes me wanna stop by... get some oil and a nice holiday... :nod:

 

For sure, if any ASSEMbler member pass by, he will be invited! We're near Montecarlo btw

 

I love eating black olives, so nice.

 

Here we go with the second part. I hope you enjoy all this.

First, remember that we have a private mill. Small producers must use other's mills, and they will not be able to check how they make the oil: if the mill is clean, if it's not too hot...who has few olives will get the olives mixed with someone else's olives...
Large producers, with private mills, will produce to gain. This means that they can't work as we do...

Ok, you have olives in plastic boxes, with brances, tiny stones etc. You have to clean them!

First you discharge the boxes on the top of this cleaning machine



Not all Italians wear that kind of hat. My father likes it. I find that very funny.

Manually, you remove the biggest items, stones, nails (used to link nets while harvesting) and push the rest down into a slope with a big fan.



Heavy items, like olives, will slide down into a plastic box. Branches, leaves will fly away in the back.



One or two people must stay on the sides of the boxes while the olives get in to remove stones, nails, branches that slide down.
Boxes full of olives are piled up, ready for the next step.



Check how in this case olives were not 100% mature. Very different colors from the other picture I've posted above! These olives are from november.

Now you have boxes filled with olives. Some of them are tiny and dry, some fat an wealthy.
You must remove the smaller ones that would lower the quality of the oil, and the bigger ones, that must be used in brine (the industrial ones are made with soda, ours with time).

Boxes filled with olives will be turned out on the top of a "grader"



The first olives to fall on the right are the smallest. Last ones on the left, the fatty ones that will be put in the brine. All the others will go in the mill.



Now, all the good olives go inside the first part of the mill that crushes them.



You see, that squared bowl in the middle. Olives get in with water to wash them, go on the top of that pipe and fall in a crusher.
Then the "gramolatura" starts. It's like mixing the pulp slowly for various minutes until oil starts to get out. This will break "oil bubbles" inside the pulp. You will see oil between the pieces of pulp. And the fragrance starts to get out strong and great!
You may add water if needed.



In about 20 minutes the pulp is ready to go on the top of this mill to be sent to a decanter. Beware, there are various kinds of mills. Ancient ones were made of stone wheels. Typical but you couldn't clean them....

Now the pulp filled with oil goes into the decanter that spins FAAAST!



Water and waste have different specific wheights than oil, so oil gets out on the top.
Check this picture to see how raw oil without water is as it gets out of the decanter!



Brown stuff is the "dirty organic part" that will be cleaned in the next step: the separator!



You will put oil and water on the top. It spins FAAAAAAAST and washes the oil with water. Dirty water gets out from the right, pure oil from the left (of the pic).
It's all mechanical. That's what makes the difference.

Check this picture:



Can you see differences in color? These 4 bottles are filled with oil from 4 different areas.
From left to right: Ciaxe, Fundega, Vallone and Boioli.

That's how we produce our treasure. When we give our oil to someone, he's always surprised.

That's satisfaction, believe me.


On the back, S. Nazario e Celso's church, roman origins.

I hope you've enjoied all this story

 

Very very awesome Though I have to ask, any idea what type of hat that actually is? Hah

 

beautiful pictures and an interesting read too :nod:

 

My are those pictures beautiful... :nod:
Thankyou for sharing this part of your life.
Its always good to know the backstory to people at this site rather than thinking them as ravenous videogame freaks. :lol:

& I LOVE Olive Oil!
Yummy! :love2:
Infact, I was dared to drink a whole bottle once.... not a good idea.