We spent about 4-5 days of our stay clambering through the treetops helping with the olive harvest and repairing the fences. The local shepherds are a real pest as they continually scrape out the soil and rocks on the fence surrounding thee grove and let there goats in to graze. The goats then attack the lower branches of the olive trees as well as the seedlings. It is an ongoing battle and Reinhardt often has furious conversations with the shepherds who just shrug their shoulders and refuse to acknowledge any wrong doing. Ce la guerre!
It was pretty easy work and the views from the treetops particularly the evening sunsets which were a sheer delight in their mantles of bold crimson and purples. Olives return oil at about a 5:1 ratio so for every 5 kilos of fruit you get a litre of oil. We actually went down to the processing plant to view the process of the washing, crushing and centrifugal separation. The solid waste is removed to another factory where it is steamed and the remaining oil in kernels, skins and leaves is removed. This quality of oil is then sold to cosmetics manufactures and the like, as it is not food grade. The waste from that process is then dried and returned to the main mill where it is used to fire the furnaces that heat the tanks for the initial separation process. Nothing is wasted, green olives in more ways than one.
When the farmers bring the olives in to be crushed they can either take the resulting oil with them or they get a credit with the co-operative for the total literage. The co-operative then acts as a sales broker through out the rest of the year. They generally sell the oil in 30,000 litre batches and when they find a buyer they contact the people who’s oil they are holding and ask if they would like to sell at the price being offered on that batch. It becomes a real gamble, which the farmers love. If they wait to long and there is a glut on the market they may get a very low price. If the world is running short then prices may climb. They are basically playing the futures market.
There are two large kalamata trees in the yard of the house and these ones we picked for table olives. When they are fresh the fruit and juice is a bright purple-red in colour. They have to be split down one side and then soaked in water for a week to get the acid out. They are then layered in drums with thick layers of salt to extract moisture and it is at this point that they start to firm up. After a week in salt they are then thoroughly washed again before being placed in either vinegar or oil with the preferred herbs or garlic etc. All over the farm there are huge bushes of wild oregano and thyme of which Bettina collected quite a bit, dried it out and brought it back with her to Germany. Just sensational on the homemade pizza or in the spaghetti sauce. Most of Reinhardt’s olives are done in garlic and oregano. We are awaiting his late January visit for our share of the haul to be delivered once it has finished being processed. Olives are expensive here in Germany so that is a top notch win as well.
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