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Harvest Notebook  |   Health Benefits 

OLIVE HARVEST NOTEBOOK

2000 The First Oil

olives condition oil
18 kg Leccino 50/50 ripe 2 litres of golden oil
2 kg Manzanillo   two preserving jars of a dark oil
400 kg Picual Still 75% green 50 litres of green oil
Notes

Picked by hand by family and friends and pressed at a small local press
Extra low acidity, well below what's required for extra virgin oil
Picual oil especially green and tasty - delicious on locally-grown organic asparagus
Enough oil for family and friends and to sell through local delicatessens

2001 : Top Oil in Wairarapa

olives condition oil
130 kg Leccino (1/3), Picual (2/3) Picual still mostly green
Very little Leccino, the rest eaten by birds 		pressed together - 18 litres
252.5 kg Picual olives Picual riper, 2% frost damage pressed together with Barnea to make interesting blend : green
Picual and banana smoothness of Barnea. 74 litres.
242 kg Barnea olives Netted to stop bird damage 10% frost damage - more severe than Picual, bad fruit culled  
18?kg Picual Picual only 1/3 green couple of litres
Notes

Pressed at the new large centrifugal press in Masterton: The Olive Press
Bird strike and two to three unusually heavy frosts take their toll on the olives
Paid pickers needed along with family and friends
Picual/Barnea wins the Supreme Award and Best Blend at the Wairarapa Olive Association's inaugural awards.

2002: A Supreme Winner and record oil

olives condition oil
6 tonnes Leccino


1/4 green
day one:400 kg hand picked, but with hand rakes the rate rose to about 700 kg per day @ 6-15 kg per tree		 buttery golden oil
225 litres used to blend with Frantoio for tuscan blend
1 tonne Frantoio   90 litres electric green
peppery

3 tonnes Barnea

all trees cropped well
1/3 green 		 
2.5 tonnes Picual 2/3 green at back of block
ripened over a week 		 
Manzanillo frost damaged, whole trees affected, bad fruit culled not good for oil
clogged up the press
low oil return
Notes

The sheer number of olives is astounding - all trees fruit well with some producing as many as 15 kilos of olives
We pick 13,000 kilos of olives, yielding 1300 litres of distinctive quality oil
Three hundred litres we make into a traditional Tuscan blend of Leccino 25 % and Frantoio 75% which wins a bronze award at the Wairarapa Olive Association Awards. This is judged Supreme Winner and Best Blend at the NZ Culinary Olive Oil Awards 2003 and wins a Bronze at the Wairarapa Olive Awards 2002. The rest of the oil is blended together and wins a Certificate of Excellence at the NZ Culinary Olive Oil Awards 2003.
With only limited nets we cover the Frantoio trees to protect vs. bird strike - effective
Family and friends pick for a couple of days and a team of paid pickers harvest the rest over four weeks
Small plastic hand rakes and large red nets speed up harvesting
We have had to look for wholesale and export markets for the oil and will go onto use larger bottles and cans.

2003: where to go?

We'd like to :
  • blend a truly peppery Tuscan oil
  • pick greener as we did in 2000, to get more oils with even more character
  • avoid making oil from the manzanillo which is better pickled!

THE OLIVE PRESS, MASTERTON

The Olive Press is a company based in Masterton in the Wairarapa with shareholders who are local olive growers. It manages a large centrifugal olive press imported from Florence, Italy, in time for the 2001 harvest. Medium-sized to large growers from all over the Wairarapa and some from Hawkes Bay use the machine which works flat out during harvest time and is mothballed during the rest of the year. Ian Stewart of DRY ROCK is a director of the company.
You can contact The Olive Press through Cleal and Christian, Accountants, Featherston.

Or contact them through Dry Rock.
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