Olive Harvest is Here
My street smells like it’s dipped in olive oil. For days now, cars, trucks, and tractors have lined the road leading up to my door (and even onto the sidewalk right outside my door- this is Italy after all!). The fragrance of freshly milled olives wafts up from the open garage door halfway down the street. Inside that garage sits Panzano’s olive mill.
Waiting for their turn at the olive mill, olive growers line Via Chiantigiana in Panzano
Here, a high tech cluster of conveyor belts, tanks and other apparatus is the heart of Panzano’s olive oil production.
One side of the “milling” garage
And the other side
Owners of the groves which surround the village drop off “casette”, (plastic containers) of their harvest. Filled with green and black fruit, many with leaves and stems still attached, these cassette are piled on the garage floor. Nearby stand large stainless steel containers that look like milk jugs, ready to catch the precious oil. Meanwhile their owners, waiting their turn at the mill, huddle on chairs or take a smoke break outside.
The next cassette to be milled
An owner sorts through the olives to pick out leaves and stems before they head up the conveyor belt where they’re sorted further
Each cassette represented hours of labor by friends, family and sometimes hired pickers. With long handled rakes, they “combed“ the olives from the trees. The olives dropped onto large cloths spread beneath each tree before being gathered up to fill a cassette.
A “modern” vibrating rake
The first monotonous manual sorting of olives from leaves
Margo and Bill, with a grove of about 150 olive trees around their pickleball court, came in for Halloween apertivo after a day of picking with friends. “It’s tedious and boring,” was Bill’s summary. ”Maybe I’ll consider that electric thing that vibrates the olives off for next year".
He laughed because he was told not to use it because it bruises the olives. “Really? But then you’re going to grind them in a mill!”
I offered to help with their next round of picking. I think it sounds like an experience I’d hate to miss! Stay tuned!
FYI: It takes about 8.8 to 11 pounds of olives to yield a liter of olive oil. Factors including the quality of the olives, their size and the variety impact the yield.
Tuscany is the world’s leading producer of olive oil. There are four main olive varieties grown here- Frantoio, Moraiolio, Leccino and Pendolino. These olives are raised only for the production of olive oil, not for eating. Southern Italy produces eating olives.