Making olive oil, Andalucia style

HARVESTING SPANISH OLIVES IN ANDALUSIA

Reading Nick’s article about Spanish olive oil production in Valencia inspired me to describe our own experiences in Andalucia – they could not be more different!

My husband and I are two English people making extra-virgin Spanish olive oil in Andalucia. We live on a 22 acre olive farm in the mountains next to the Sierra de las Nieves national park. The two of us do all the work on the farm ourselves, from fertilising the trees, to pruning, through to picking the harvest. The only thing we don’t do is press the olives ourselves!

The harvest is by far the hardest part. It starts at the beginning of December and takes the two of us about a month to pick the crop. It is heavily weather dependent, too – if it rains, we can’t pick. If it is too windy, we can’t lay the nets down. If the winds are too bad, we may lose up to 50% of the harvest – so, now I now know what they mean about the plight of the farmer!

A COLLECTION OF OLIVES READY FOR PRESSING

At Casa Tyr we have about 850 olive trees and when the olives are ready for picking, all other life stops. Indeed, we move from tree to tree collecting olives during which I often ask myself – did my university education really prepare me for this?

For a month, day after day, the hours pass something like this:

Take two 10m by 6m nylon nets. Lay one each side of an olive tree. Start up the shaking machine and give the tree a good shake. Collect the olives from the nets and place in a large sack. Repeat 849 times. While most people spend December preparing for Christmas, we spend it picking olives!

The work is made somewhat harder by the fact that we usually have our 2 boxer dogs “helping”. Their favourite pastime is sitting in the nets while the olives fall down around them!

In Yunquera, there are two places to take the olives. The most popular is the modern, Italian-made, high-yielding, centrifugal press that produces clean, filtered olive oil ready for immediate use. The locals seem to prefer this but I don’t know why. Maybe it is the high yield? Maybe it is the fact that the machine is Italian – or even that the oil is instantly clear?

ANDALUSIAN OLIVES GOING TO BE PROCESSED

However, we prefer to take our olives to Rafael at Nuestra Señora del Rosario olive press. Rafael makes olive oil in a more traditional way, using a very old, cast iron press to gently squeeze the oil from the olives. Here there is no high speed centrifuge, no heated olive mash – just 4,500 pounds per square inch of pressure.

The purists say that this method of completely cold pressing the olives makes a better olive oil, whilst others dismiss this as nonsense. All we know is that our olive oil, which we call “Yunquera Gold”, is revered in many countries, so it works for us.

Each day we take our “sacos” of olives to the press. There, they are tipped into large steel baskets, called “canastas”, where they are left to “breathe” for a couple of days. After that, they are whisked up a conveyor belt to the blower that removes all the leaves and debris before they are mashed into a paste. This paste is then spread, by hand, onto round woven mats which are placed on top of each other on a large trolley.

PREPARING THE OLIVES FOR THE PRESS

When full, the trolley is loaded into the press and the process begins. About four hours later, something that looks like used engine oil is decanted into 25 litre containers to await collection. (The first time we saw the freshly-pressed oil, we were horrified – it looked like sludge! But it doesn’t take long for the sediment to settle, and the result is beautifully clear olive oil.)

PREPARING SPANISH OLIVES FOR THE PRESS

We bring the containers back to Casa Tyr and pour the oil into 200 litre drums, where it is left to settle. It takes about two months for the remaining bits of olive mash to settle to the bottom, then our new harvest of pure, golden Yunquera Gold olive oil is ready to ship to waiting customers!

SPANISH OLIVE OIL PRESS

Our pure, extra-virgin olive oil is enjoyed as far away as New York City and Minnesota in the US, as well as in Spain, Switzerland, Germany and the UK – which is surely proof of the quality of our Spanish olive oil and that original way of processing still works really well!

SPANISH OLIVE OIL JUST PRESSED

Casa Tyr is the home of Ann & Kenton Smith where they make Yunquera Gold olive oil and Lujos handmade soaps and natural skincare products. For more information, or to buy oil or Lujos products, visit www.yunqueragold.com (for the World’s best olive oil) or www.lujos.co.uk (to read more about us) or call Ann & Kenton on 633-630406.