News

2011
Visit to Spain
The year started with a fantastic trip to the Andalusia region of Spain, more particularly the Guadalquivir valley area – visiting Seville, Cordoba and Granada, along with a week’s “intensive” in the Jaen/Baena area which is surely the world’s most productive olive growing region. Nothing prepares you for the sight of such a vast landscape of olive trees, stretching over plains, foothills and to distant mountain ranges.
We met some absolutely lovely and welcoming people within the olive industry who were so generous with their time and information; the more notable being Castillo De Canena, Nunez De Prado, Luque, Torre Luna and Olivarera De Zuheros. We met some whose families had been olive oil producers for over a century. It is of note that although the larger producers are more recent and export mainly oils to the bulk market, they also produce a range of extra virgin olive oils complying with the sub-regions “Denominazione di Origine Protetta (DOP) that they are fiercely proud of. We did indeed taste some wonderful oils – quite unlike the EVOO produced here in NZ. The Picual variety dominates with Hojiblanca next and new cultivars are being introduced, like the Arbequina (from the Catalonia region).
It was notable how “organics” is being embraced by most of those we visited; as the groves were huge by NZ standards, small areas were being converted as a start, with plans to expand to meet market demands (mainly within the EU).Great to see as this ties in well with our philosophy.  We saw antique earthenware and milling equipment right through to the modern day mills with stainless steel and operating up to 8 centrifugal extractors under the one roof.

Marlborough Days
It was then back to Marlborough to monitor the fruit ripening period and make the decision to start harvest the end of May – and what a harvest it was (albeit wet).  An outstanding crop on all cultivars!  We harvested and pressed our cultivars from the early (late May for higher polyphenols and more pungent taste) and throughout June to a later, final harvest the first week of July.
Our harvesting regime allows us to offer a range of three levels of intensity; being delicate, medium and intense.
We pressed our largest tonnage of Koroneiki to date.  It is always exciting to taste the oils at the press and get the taste buds tingling ; we are extremely pleased with the flavors and complexity of the oils produced in 2011. 
We offer three oils certified by BioGro this year – these being the Medium (Koroneiki), Intense (Organic) and our limited edition oil “Over the Creek” blend. Note that although our grove has Biogro organic status there are protocols to follow in the processing phase which dictates what EVOO carries the organic label. Next year all our oil will be processed to organic standards.
Bottling started in August (after a six week settling period in stainless steel tanks) and now the EVOO is out to our stockists which is always a thrill.

Planned Festivals
We will be participating at two festivals booked so far for the remainder of 2011. 
The first is the Picton SpringFest (17/18 September 2011) where we will have a stand in the Taste Marlborough tent.  Our oil will be used in all the cooking demonstrations. 
The second is the NZ Olive Festival 2011 in Napier (at the Hawkes Bay Racecourse) on the 24 September.  This will be our second year at the Festival and we are looking forward to it. 
Maybe we will see you at one of these where we can meet, greet and discuss/share our EVOO with you.
Unfortunately the Christchurch Food Show was twice cancelled this year.