200 litres plus with a contribution from every tree in our Valero groves, a bumper harvest after last year. The Extra virgin produced excellent – and plenty over for friends. We went on to an olive oil tasting at nearby award winning ‘Señorios de Relleu – where Hugo Quintinilla let us sample his four varieties: Organic, Delicate, Medium and Intense. My favourite, as last year, the Intense. (https://www.senoriosderelleu.com/nosotros/)

 

Summer heat brought our harvest forward – quite a few trees seems to be having a rest so the harvest a little below expected. 264 kilos were gathered with the customary mix of roughly Manzanillas 80% and Blanqueta 20% producing 65 litres of Extra virgin organic olive oil from Jordi’s press in the campo. No happy gatherers from abroad this year – but the home crew enjoyed a sunny October day harvesting and an enjoyable lunch. Thanks to Tineke, Chris, Remé and Sol for all their help. The oil is tangy, full of flavour and delicious on morning toast with a rose window of Alicante tomato.

The trees now ready for a prune with hopes for a better harvest next year.

After the storms and cold of January, Spring very much underway here. Today stocked up on oranges and mandarins from our Valero grove. The January rain has brought the oranges on nicely – now need to organise clearing the dense wild flowers (some say weeds) from the orchards.

Beautiful balmy day – sunbathed for an hour after lunch.

We gathered  little later than usual this year – about half the trees were producing following the odd weather – but we harvested sufficient for 72 litres of extra virgin – a 80/20 mix of Manzanilla and Blanqueta olives. The oil smooth, tasty and easily enough for us and our friends this coming year.

We were ably helped in the field by visitors from England, Jane Sergeant, Joan Scot, Jonathan David Simons, Mary Costello, Tim Edwards, Jackie Story – and from New York, Rabab Fayad and Michael Kaftner.  We enjoyed tasting some other local oils. In making the judgement, ignore the colour or clarity of the oil (both irrelevant) but savour the taste and gentle sensation at the back of the throat you experience from a good extra virgin oil.  One oil we sampled was from the  ‘Señorios de Relleu’  (https://www.senoriosderelleu.com/) whose groves are spread around Masía de Teuladi on the opposite side of the ravine from us. They have been winning some international awards for the quality of their oil recently so we are in good company. So a reasonable  harvest – but we hope for 100 litres plus next year. We gained 200 litres plus in past years.