The Tuscan Olive Harvest: EyeItalia’s Excellent Adventure!
Olives have been harvested in Italy for thousands of years, and the annual autumn ritual of picking and crushing this bitter fruit is a sacred tradition for millions of Italians. But for three rookie Americans, 2009 was our (extra) virgin experience with “La Raccolta”.
My Italian home, Ciceroni, is surrounded by a hectare of land (about 3 acres) and is graced by 80-85 olive trees. In a normal year these trees – when properly pruned and maintained – should produce between 300-350 kilos of olives, and yield between 45-50 liters of oil. But this was no normal year: due to the hot, dry summer in Tuscany, there were fewer olives to be had in general, and my trees had not been pruned for several years, further decreasing the yield. Adding insult to injury was the thick growth of brush under the trees which made access (and the use of our nets) difficult if not impossible.
We arrived from California with high hopes, excitement and tons of energy. Our first morning was devoted to buying supplies (nets, plastic crates, and gloves), in hopes of starting the harvest that afternoon. By day’s end, however, it had begun to rain and the rain lasted for two full days. This was probably a blessing in disguise as jet lag caught up with us the second day. But on the third day, the sun came out, the wind quickly dried the grass and trees, and the harvest began!
Within hours, my friend Denise and I realized what we’d gotten into… branches that poked us in the eye (and elsewhere), rogue grapevines twisting through our trees, ground that wouldn’t allow us to lay our nets down, and broken ladders. We could hear each other’s moans, groans and cries of “ouch!” from 100 yards away. At the end of our first day we had picked about 20 kg, about half of what we’d thought we’d do. To say we were a bit discouraged is an understatement. But carry on we did, and as our crates began to fill up the next day, we got a second wind. We began to name our trees, as each had a special personality. Denise dubbed her favorite tree “Donnatella Camilla” after one of our very fertile friends – as the tree was literally hanging with fruit. I named one of mine “Strozzi” as it strangled you as you climbed it. When one of us would find a tree that had an abundance of low-hanging olives we’d furiously stake our claim to it…all in the spirit of friendly competition. Denise was leaving in two days’ time, and we fretted we wouldn’t have enough olives to do a pressing, but our friends at neighboring Pignano offered to combine our olives with theirs for the first press. By Denise’s last day, we had 100 kg of what we called our beautiful “babies”.
We were off to the press…the frantoio was absolutely humming with activity. Tons and tons of olives (and their proud pickers) were everywhere. Denise and I laughed that ours were the most perfectly groomed (we had carefully removed every stem and leaf from ours, while everyone else’s were full of the stuff). We watched the whole process, from the weighing to the washing to the crushing to the exquisite moment when that beautiful chartreuse oil came out of the spout into our stainless steel container. We were over the moon…and came home with 16 liters of “Tuscan Gold”.
The very next day my friend Acey arrived to take over where Denise had left off. Again the rains came, and what olives were left were high in the trees and difficult to reach. But Acey hadn’t traveled 6000 miles for nothing…he got to work. As all of the olives had to be picked and placed in baskets by hand (again, no nets, and we had only one small basket), Acey improvised with his backpack, placing it in front of him which made for the perfect receptacle. Within several days (while still dodging rainstorms), we had 40 more kg of olives and off to the press we went again, coming back with 7 more liters.
We learned a lot from our first harvest. Ciceroni’s trees will be properly pruned in February, and the land cleared next fall within a week of the harvest. I’ll invest in two or three proper baskets. And with luck, we’ll have at least two more hearty pickers on hand. We’re shooting for a yield of 50 liters!
This year’s oil is “piccantissimo”…very peppery with a bit of a bite. Nothing beats dipping a crusty chunk of bread into this fragrant oil and tasting the earth, the trees and the olives it came from. What a life-affirming experience we had, and what a thrill to take part in this ancient ritual. We can’t wait for “La Raccolta” 2010!
—Susan Naythons