Olivery News

 First olives in this season were from the Olivewood grove in Esk Valley. Olivewood grove is hand picked by Julie and Zane due to the sloping hills the grove is placed on.  The planting format was in the old style of thinking of placing manzanillo trees as pollinators among the rows of other olive varieties. This means Julie and Zane first have to find the Manzanillo trees (about 1 in 20) dotted around the grove before harvesting!

Check out these olives!  This picture of the Manzanillo olives on the trees in the Villa grove.  They are huge! Its been a fantastic growing season this year.  We've had healthy trees and low rainfall - a drought in fact!   Looking to harvest in a week or so, around the 6th of May. Interesting how the olives are green and black right next to each other.  

  Today I harvested the big green olive tree.  We think it is a Uovo D'Piccione or UDP for short.  We ended up with three of these among the Kalamata trees due to a mix up at the nursery.  Its very hard to tell olive trees apart, especially when they are still seedlings resulting in nursery mix ups being a regular occurrence. This one tree produced 14kg of fruit, which we will process and make available through the Olivery shop. As the picture shows they are a large fruit, they have a nutty & light olive flavour.    

Cabernet drizzle and olive oil centers, with dark chocolate coat. In what perhaps is a world first, Vinnie Beaumont at Telegraph Hill has made a cabernet wine and olive oil Easter egg. This is definitely an egg for adult taste, while sweet from the cabernet drizzle, the olive oil gives richness and depth, with a chocolate coated finish.  These delectable eggs are strictly adults only! The gooey centre is made of Cabernet Drizzle and Olive Oil.  Utilising his Chef skills Vinnie has combined these two ingredients into a gooey centre.  Then covered with dark chocolate.  With each egg just a...