The Olive Oil Tour

The aged olive tree

I love olive oil. You probably already know that. But it bears repeating because everyone should love olive oil. Spain is actually the largest olive oil producer in the world. Like wine, the flavor of olive oil depends on growing conditions; each country, each region, even each farm produces different tasting oils. I wanted to taste Spanish olive oil, so I signed us up for a tasting to be followed by tapas and a wine tasting.

We were picked up in downtown Granada and whisked off to a small town called Nigüelas in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We stopped first in an olive grove where the trees were 300 years old. Olive trees grow slowly, so these trees are much smaller than a 300 year old maple, oak, or elm tree would be. They didn’t even seem taller than younger olive trees, just bushier. Amongst the olive trees were almond and pomegranate trees. In Andalusia they have a saying, plant an almond tree for your children and an olive tree for your grandchildren.

Joe trying the water from the "fountain of youth" in Nigüelas. 

We left the fields and drove into the town square where there is a fountain fed by the Sierra Nevada. It is rumored that drinking the water will make you younger. It was tasty and not as cold as I thought it would be, but it didn’t stop my birthday from coming. I like the concept of potable water in public fountains as it’s very easy to satisfy your thirst. From the square we walked to an ancient olive mill, Las Laerillas, from the 15th century.

 The mill fell out of use in the 1920s and it was boarded up and forgotten. In the 1990s the town realized what a treasure they had and they reopened the mill as a museum. It is the oldest olive mill in Spain. Outside the mill are stone cells which served as bins for sorting picked olives—each family had their own cell. These were weighed (so each family received their proper share) and then brought to the Molino de Sangre or Mill of Blood. This type of mill earned its name in Roman times when slaves were used to turn the millstones; the slaves were later replaced with donkeys, but the name remained.

The giant pressing lever at the Las Laerillas Mill

After milling, the olives were pressed. This was achieved by use of giant levers. The pressed oil/water mixture flowed into underground chambers and gravity separated the oil from the water. The finished product was stored in giant terracotta pots from which manageable quantities could be labeled.

Large terracotta pots used for storing the pressed oil.

The final stop on the tour was a small shop where we had our tasting. We tasted 3 local oils with different tastes and 2 flavored oils. There are 2 methods of flavoring oil: the flavoring (herbs, fruits, or spices) can be added to the oil during bottling; or the flavoring can be added during milling. In the first method, the flavoring will sit in the bottle, slowing imparting flavor over time. In the latter, the flavoring and the olives are ground together and then pressed. The flavored oils we tried were lemon and basil, and they were flavored with the second method. The basil oil was delicious and would be an excellent way to impart basil flavor when basil leaves are out of season. I’m really excited to try it in some recipes. The lemon oil was very different; we ate it like a dessert. We poured the oil over bread and then sprinkled a little bit of sugar on top. This combination transformed the bread into an enchanting dessert.

After the oil we had our wine tasting, and among the samples was a dry, white sherry. It smelled like it would be potent, a little like whisky. But, since old sherry casks are used to age whisky, it is the whisky that smells like sherry. Despite its strong smell though, it was a smooth drink—very tasty. We bought a bottle. We also tried another sherry; it was red and much sweeter. It was made from raisins; the grapes are dried in the sun before pressing. While interesting to try, I think was too sweet.

Useful Links!

Pictures from Our Trip!

The Olive Oil Tour

Converting to Olive Oil

Our tour guide in Lucca, Wanda, said that making olive oil was a religion. And it's gaining converts. Not long ago, I posted about olive oil from our previous Italy trip. During research for that post, I discovered Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil by Tom Mueller and I added it to my reading list. After exploring the history of olive oil Mueller delves into the occasionally sleazy world of olive oil to expose the realities of the business to naive consumers. The story is beautiful, the corruption is frightening and infuriating.

In my last post, I briefly mentioned the international olive oil groups charged with monitoring the quality of oils aspiring to be extra virgin. Mueller discusses these organizations as well, and notes that even when they find inferior oil, there is little they can do to remove the product from the market.

Fraud in olive oil is an age-old, global phenomenon and it comes in many forms. The oil may be labeled as extra virgin, but is in fact virgin, pomace, refined, or olive oil laced with inferior seed oils. Besides the risks that the mislabeled oils may be contaminated with other harmful substances, there is the fact that these oils do not have the same health benefits as real extra virgin olive oil. Real EVOO is loaded with antioxidants and has acted as a panacea for millennia. Time recently wrote an article about the Mediterranean diet lowering heart risks. Extra virgin olive oil is the crux of the Mediterranean diet, but consuming the fraudulent substances comes with none of the health benefits.

Mueller tells a compelling story with heroes and villans fighting in a war that is far from over. If you care at all about the quality of the food you and your family eat, do yourself a favor and read this book. You'll learn what you've been missing and you'll gain an insight into the culture of oil making. And keep some good oil nearby - you'll want it while you read.

Useful Links!

Amazon Page for Extra Virginity by Tom Mueller
Previous Post, Are Olives Fruit?
Time article, It's the olive oil

Are Olives Fruit?

Frantoio La Visona Olive Oil Cooperative

In a word, yes. Olives develop from the flower of the olive tree, therefore they are fruits, and I suppose they are stone fruits, as they have pits. Olive oil production is a highly contentious subject in Italy. Like most crops it has been subject to large companies coming into the area and working on large scale farms, while the local farmers fight to keep their traditions and superior products alive. We visited a traditional olive mill which operates as a cooperative, meaning that lots of smaller farms join their harvests together to create an abundance of product. Farmers will bring in their olives for pressing, they will take the oil they need (it’s a source of pride to offer your guests oil from your own crops), and the rest will become part of the group collection. The mill will sell bottles of olive oil gleaned from many of the local farms around Lucca. Angelo, the owner of the mill, had very specific opinions about how the oil should be produced for maximum quality.

Traditionally, farmers pick all the olives by hand, climbing up and down ladders in their groves. To maximize space, the olives are often grown on terraced hillsides, so by necessity they are picked by hand. The large farms have machines that shake the olive trees causing all the olives to fall on to nets on the ground.

Millstones

Picking of the olives has to be carefully timed. Stored in large bins, the olives will turn rotten very quickly, and it is imperative they be pressed as soon as possible. Angelo will not accept olives for pressing that are older than 3 days, and he claims that the larger mills will take olives of any age, resulting in an inferior product. At the co-op, the actions of a single farmer can have ramifications for everyone else, so no one tries to sneak in old olives. If they did, the oil for the entire co-op could be ruined, and no one would make any money.

Clean sieves

Step one of olive oil production: remove the stems and leaves that wind up in the bins from picking. Step two: wash the olives so they are clean. Step three is fun: crush the olives (stone and all) using a mechanized mill stone. These are large round “stones” (boulders more like) that spin around quite quickly and crush the olives into a paste. Next the paste is spread onto a kind of sieve; it looks like a squashed woven basket. Each sieve is about an inch thick, with a large hole in the middle. When loaded up with the paste, the sieves are stacked on top of each other on a dolly, and then wheeled over to the pressing machine. Here the oil is squeezed out of the sieves, this is called cold pressing because the olives are not heated to harvest the oil. This is also the first pressing. Some large oil refineries will use the pressed sieves to extract more oil using heat and/or a chemical process. This is not cold pressing or first pressing. Angelo believes that this is an abomination, but he will sell his used sieves to these companies, as he would have just thrown them out anyway. The final step is separating the oil from the water, because when the olive paste is pressed, both water and oil are produced. The separation is done via a machine (I think it was a centrifuge), but as Angelo tells us, in the old days, they would have just waited for the oil to rise to the top.

The first, cold pressing of olive paste to make olive oil

During our visit, the mill was temporarily closed, but this is a rarity. During harvest season, they operate all hours of the day and night. 24/6.5, as they close early on Sundays to clean the machines so they will continue to operate properly. The co-op is a small one room operation, but when those machines are fired up, it has all the volume of a full blown factory. As expected from an olive mill, every surface is oily, and we had to step carefully lest we slip on the slick floors. The smell of olives was pervasive, but pleasant. Wanda and Angelo were old friends; her family has been bringing their olives there for decades. He says she gets preferential pressing times since she has been a patron so long, but she claims she remembers coming in at 2am in the past.

After the tour of the mill, we adjourned to a small meeting room where we feasted on olive oil treats and meats prepared for us by Angelo’s wife; I’ve never met her, but I love her now for those delicious goodies. While we munched on bread, olive oil, and salami, swishing it back with wine, Angelo told us about quality olive oil. There is in an International Olive Council, which sets guidelines for the qualifications of oil. Interestingly enough, how the oil looks is not part of the grading system. The oil for sale at the co-op was a bright, cloudy, green; in sharp contrast to the clear yellows of oil commonly available on American grocery shelves, but it was the best oil I have ever tasted. Olive oil grades are based on the acidity of the oil, the more acidic the oil, the more rancid it tastes. To earn the coveted extra-virgin olive oil grade, oils must have less than 0.8% acidity. Oil at the co-op, Frantoio La Visona must be less than 0.3%.

Olive oil is flammable

US readers take note: the United States is not part of the International Olive council, and uses a different grading system. You are likely buying inferior oils marketed as a higher quality product. When you are purchasing oils, look for the key words: first cold pressing. I also recommend a quick perusal of the Wikipedia olive oil page for a breakdown of what you are likely to find at the grocery store.

And a final cooking tip from Angelo, only cook on low heat for short periods of time. If you are cooking you oil on high heat, or for longer periods, you will lose all the flavor and consistency of extra virgin olive oil. If you do need to cook on high or for a long time, use a lower grade of oil and then add the EVOO after cooking. This will save you money and flavor. 

One last thing: 

One last thing: when researching this post, I came across a book called Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil by Tom Mueller, and I am adding it to my reading list. This subject matter is the exact kind of thing Angelo was describing to us in his narration of small farmer vs global corporation.

Useful Links!

Photos from Our Trip!
Visit Lucca
Frantoio La Visona Olive Oil Co-op
International Olive Oil Council
Olive Oil on Wikipedia
Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil Link to the book on amazon
NPR Interview with Tom Mueller

Hiking to Montecarlo

Montecarlo is a community close to the city of Lucca and to our hotel. It should not be confused with the gambling haven in Monaco, France. If you google Montecarlo, Italy, the internet will inform you that Montecarlo is a commune. This does not mean commune the way it does in English; something is lost in translation. The village has a walled fortress as one of its attractions, and it was to there our guide led us.

Friendly Farmer Harvesting Olives

                      

As you can probably infer from the name, Montecarlo is a hilltop community, so most of our 6km hike was uphill. We left the hotel, jumped a chain on a blocked off road, and proceeded through the woods toward our destination.

Along the way, we passed several olive groves in the midst of being harvested by the local farmers. Each tree is handpicked by farmers on step ladders, and for the best tasting oil, they must be pressed with 3 days after harvest. But I will explore all the intricacies of olive farming later. However, it is important to note there were many piles of olive boughs piled up along the trail. I picked up and olive branch and extended it to Joe, but he took it and smacked me with it. Not quite the peaceful proceeding it was supposed to be.

The Hanging Tree

We also came upon a gigantic oak tree. It’s several hundred years old, and the branches are so heavy that they must be supported by posts. This tree also has a claim to fame as the hanging tree in Pinocchio and as a hanging tree for witches. If you find yourself confused by this reference, that’s ok, I was too. Apparently, in the orginial text of Pinocchio a Cat and a Fox hang Pinocchio after they rob him, but he won’t die because he is a marionette. I thought the Disney version was a little racy, but from what I can glean, the original is worse. My dislike of Pinocchio aside, it was cool to visit the town of his origin.

Terraced Olive Valley

Our guide was excellent, and he pointed out typical Italian plant life during the hike. In addition to the olive groves we also encountered Cyprus trees and pine nut trees. The latter look just like normal pine trees, but they are the bearers of the delicious pine nut, harvested from the pine cones. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see any nuts in the cones because it was past the prime harvest time of late summer.  We also encountered a tree laden with orange fruits. We mistakenly thought they were peaches, but our guide said no, this tree bears the kaki fruit. Never heard of kaki? How about persimmon? When ripe, this variety of fruit has an inside like pudding, and can be eaten with a spoon. We didn’t get to try any though.

Useful Links!

Italy Pictures!

Montecarlo Homepage

The Adventures of Pinocchio at Wikipedia

About Persimmon Trees

Upcoming Trip!

During Thanksgiving, most people have days off, as it's a Federal holiday. However, as we discussed last year, Germany doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving, so everything is open! This year, Joe and I have signed up for a trip scheduled by the base MWR (Family & Morale, Welfare, and Recreation). We're going on a 4 day trip to Italy! I've included our itinerary here since we'll be keeping our activities cheap in the run-up to the trip.

Day 1: Departure from Germany

Day 2: Pisa City Tour

We will stop for breakfast at a highway restaurant. After breakfast, we will arrive in Pisa for our city tour. The tour includes a stop to the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa. Free time will be provided to ascend the leaning tower or to visit other sights Pisa has to offer. Sights in the city worth visiting include the cathedral, botanical gardens, museums, Piazza del Duomo, Museo del O’Pera del Duomo, field of miracles, treasuries, and the baptistery. After a nice relaxing lunch, we depart Pisa for our hotel in Gragnano, a small village near to the city of Lucca for some needed rest and relaxation. Dinner is served in the hotel.

Day 3: Montecarlo Hiking/Fortress Tour, Lunch/Wine Tasting, & Free Time

After breakfast, the hotel director will take the group on a 5km hike from the hotel to the town of Montecarlo. We will hike through a scenic landscape of oak trees up to the village and the medieval town fortress. The trail then takes us further into Montecarlo at a local Fattoria. A wine tasting is included during lunch. Afterwards the bus will depart for free time in Lucca.

Day 4: Florence City Tour & Free Time

We will depart our hotel after breakfast for the Renaissance city of Florence. In the morning during our city tour we’ll see the city’s highlights by bus from the outskirts, and then walk its medieval streets by foot. We’ll see famous Ponte Vecchio Bridge with the homonymous Palazzo as well as the largest Franciscan church in Italy, Santa Maria Croce, which is considered to be the burial site of some of the most influential Italian people from history, art, and literature. Also impressive is the Palazzo Vecchio in the Piazza della Signoria with the replica of David by Michelangelo. Other attractions include the octagonal Baptistery dedicated to the patron saint of Florence, San Giovanni, and the Palazzo Medici Ricardi. Free time will be provided in the afternoon to purchase souvenirs, or visit a museum.

Day 5: Lucca Tour, Market visit with Chef, Olive Oil Tasting and 4 Course Dinner

Today, a special experience awaits you. The hotel chef will take us to Lucca to shop for the ingredients for our 4 course Tuscan dinner. The Lucca fruit and vegetable market is well known for its Tuscan food. Our hotel chef will explain his purchases, and you have the opportunity to ask questions and maybe suggest an ingredient he should buy for the 4 course dinner. In the afternoon, there will be a brief tour of Lucca. During our tour, you will see the impressive Piazza del Mercato, where a Roman Amphitheatre was located. Also worth seeing is the Piazza San Michele with the Church of San Michele in Foro and the Palazzo Pretorio. In the late afternoon, we take our bus to outskirts of Lucca for an olive oil tasting.

Day 6: Return to Germany