The most modern method shakes the olives off the branches using a machine that looks like a motorized pitchfork at the end of a long pole.
The pitchfork vibrates aggressively, and the ripe olives tumble from the branches into the nets.
This is our neighbor Giuseppe. He prefers the old-fashioned way. He has a point.
Stripping the fruit off the trees by hand damages the trees less that the mechanical shakers.
There is also much less time spent sorting… since what falls into the nets is olives without most of the twigs, leaves, and stems.
In the end, it takes roughly the same amount of time either way to get all the fruit off a tree and into baskets.
Giuseppe talked Carol into helping out a bit.
The learning curve on how to pick olives by hand is short and not very steep.
The work can also be hazardous.
You’re high up in a tree. The orchards are often on steep hillsides where the ground is not level. And the ripest bunch
of olives is usually just out of reach…
…until there’s finally enough to take to the press.
The olive harvest runs from early November through late-December.
Fruit that’s picked early tends to be green and not as plump.
Round black olives…like the ones to the left… yield the most oil.
However, the highest quality, best-tasting oil comes from green fruit.
So the question is when to pick…
When we visited the processing plant, we weren’t sure what to expect. The old press outside the plant showed us the way it used to be done.
Here we have to stop for a minute to explain some terms. On olive oil in stores, you’ve probably seen the terms “extra virgin” and “cold pressed” on the label. These explain how olives are turned into oil.
It is possible to get more oil out of an olive if you do two things to it. After the first press, you’re left with a mass of pulp. If you heat the pulp or press it again, you can squeeze more juice out of what you have. However, the heat alters the taste (not for the better) and the second or third press produces lower quality oil. Therefore, “extra virgin” oil refers to the product from the first press and “cold pressed” means the fruit was not heated before processing.
…a thoroughly modern food processing plant, designed to process 4,000 metric tons of olives per day. It was a good thing, because there were lots of olives waiting.
The olives are processed in batches, with each grower’s fruit run as a separate batch.
This plant runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week from early November through late December.
What came in that day got processed that day.
The olives were stored in big tubs…
…which is how Fregoli knows how much to charge the grower.
This batch weighed 564 kg (nearly 1,250 lbs).
The fruit goes on a conveyor through a wind tunnel that separates any leaves, twigs or loose stems from the heavier olives.
The olives are washed for an hour…
That pulp is mixed with water for another hour.
The cliche “oil and water don’t mix” applies here. Gravity separates the two.
The pulp that’s left over is dried out and then used as biofuel to power the plant.
Finally, olive oil emerges from the complex of stainless steel pipes and tubes…
The oil is then pumped into large containers…
Paolo Fregoli has been doing this for years…as has his family before him.
The growers call him <<Il Capo>>… The Boss.
The premium olive oil business in this part of Italy follows the same pattern as the Brunello wineries. There are no giant food conglomerates mass-marketing their products world-wide. Instead, there are hundreds…perhaps of thousands…of small growers who produce a few thousand liters of oil each.
Enter Franco Bardi.
He runs a small family operation between the villages of Petroio and Castelmuzio.
A professional olive oil grader told me his oil is among “the best of the best.”
What makes his oil so good?
He says it’s the soil and the local micro-climate…just like fine wine.
Bardi produces only four thousand bottles of oil a year. He ships world wide. The day we visited he was packaging for a shipment to Tokyo, and another pallet destined for Hong Kong was sitting on his loading dock.
…and his label is protected by a powerful producers’ association.
Which brings us back to the olive oil grader.
…and Franco Bardi can put this stamp on his label.
If it doesn’t pass, it can still be bottled and sold, but the word “Toscano” cannot appear on the label.