Moon over Martinborough

The other afternoon I walked through the grove to look at the olives. I wanted to see how close they are to being ready to harvest. The late autumn light was sloping through the sky and throwing long shadows across the vibrant green grass. The olive trees were literally soaking up all the sun, leaving patches of darkness in their wakes.

Distracted by the beauty of sunlight on grass

The light was so beautiful that I for a moment I forgot why I was in the grove. Then I turned back to the trees. I walked down their rows, reached out and touched the branches, looked closely at the olives.

The old-fashioned, non-scientific way to assess an olive crop is that one-third of the olives should be black, one-third green, and one-third ‘straw,’ or halfway between green and black.

There are other ways, of course. If Rick and I wanted, we could send periodic samples off to an infrared analysis testing facility in Auckland. This would tell us the exact oil and moisture content over the ripening period in order to determine the optimum time to harvest.

We came to the country because we wanted to live simply. The old-fashioned way works just fine for us.

Knowing the trees

When we moved in, all 500 of those trees were just olive trees to me, and they pretty much looked the same. But now I know that’s as silly as saying all Asians look the same, or all white folk. People only say that when they haven’t actually looked.

Now I see every single one of our different cultivars, or varieties of olive tree. Here are the Barnea. There are the Manzanillo. On this side of the grove are the Frantoio and Leccino. On that side are the Nabali.

They are all different.

The Barnea are an Israeli variety. They’re long and tall and not easily reached by a ladder. Their olives are oblong and have little points at the end, and they offer up a deliciously mellow, buttery tasting oil.

Manzanillo trees are shorter and rounder than Barnea. They’re from Spain. The olives are fat, and they turn black sooner than the others. They’re so good for pickling that they’re used worldwide by the pizza industry. But the olives can be pressed as well. It’s not unusual to find that Martinborough’s award-winning olive oils contain some blend with Manzanillo.

Rows of Barnea and Manzanillo

The Frantoio and Leccino are Tuscan varieties. These are the youngest of our trees, at six years old as opposed to ten. Their oil has an incredible taste that starts out grassy and ends with a strong peppery bang. The Frantoio olives are always the last to ripen, and are a bright yellow-green.

And then there are the Nabali. They’re our problem children. They’re a Palestinian cultivar, and they’re the most beautiful of all our trees, with knobbly forked trunks and darker green leaves. But we’ve never seen them bear fruit.

The fruitless wonders

I talked to Priscilla, who we bought the property from, about the Nabali. She planted them a decade ago, and they didn’t fruit for her either. She was going to pull them out one year, but then that year they actually bore fruit. So, she decided to leave them. They haven’t fruited since.

I’m convinced the trees knew they were about to get the axe, and they finally offered up fruit to Priscilla in order to save their necks. So whenever I walk through that section of the grove I say loudly, “I’m going to rip all these Nabili out if they don’t fruit this year!”

But my fear tactics never seem to work. The Nabali are smarter than that now.

Once, when we had Neville the Nine Fingered Olive Pruner in our grove, I asked him if we really should pull all the Nabali out. Neville is a sprightly elf of a man, and an expert in olives in New Zealand.

He looked at the Nabali, then at me. “How old are they?”

“Ten years,” I said.

He leaned in closely. His eyes sparkled. “There are olive trees in the Middle East that are thousands of years old. These Nabali are babies! In the New Zealand climate, they might start fruiting at 20, or 30. We don’t know yet. It’s early days for New Zealand olives. Just let them be.”

So they stay, fruit or no, because Neville the Nine-Fingered Olive Pruner said so. I hope some day those Palestinian trees bear fruit.

Assessing the crop

Nabali aside, the grove looks fantastic. There are Barnea branches so heavy with fruit that they’re leaning down from their tall space in the sky. The Manzanillo are covered, and the young Leccino and Frantoio are laden. There are nearly 450 trees offering up an abundance of fruit to harvest.

Manzanillo in fruit

Overall, the olives are just about a third black, third green, third straw. The early Manzanillo make up for the late Frantoio. By the time we harvest, it will be perfect.

But ripe fruit alone does not a harvest make. There are the rakes and nets you need, the crates for the olives, the containers for the oil after the olives are pressed, and of course there is the labor.

The Queen’s Birthday

On the first Monday in June, New Zealand has a holiday to celebrate the Queen’s birthday. It’s a hangover from colonial days, of course, but I don’t mind.

The long weekend is timed well with the olive harvest, and it’s a great opportunity to invite our city friends out to help. They’ve helped us before and this year they’re helping us again – prompted only by friendship, love of this place, and the promise of my beef and veggie lasagna, plus their very own bottle of our oil when it’s ready.

As always, we would be nowhere without our friends.

The last job

After that sunny afternoon strolling through the grove and assessing the crop, I made a mistake. I put off the most horrible ‘harvest prep’ job for too long.

Ridiculously expensive olive oil container

I had secured the borrowed rakes, nets and crates from a commercial grove down the road, invited and confirmed the city friends, attended a pre-harvest meeting of local growers, arranged to drop off the harvest at the local olive press, and even decided on what bottles to order. But I had left one job undone.

Then, last weekend, when there were no more weekends to procrastinate with, when the weather had turned nasty, cold and rainy and gale force winds were ripping down the Wairarapa valley, when I wanted nothing more than to be inside next to the fire – I had to go outside and do the job I’d been avoiding.

I had to go scour old olive oil out of large, stainless steel containers.

This involves hot water, ammonia-based household cleaner (or caustic soda if you want to go really toxic), and shaking those big containers until you can’t shake no more. Then follow with three hot water rinses, shaking furiously each time, then another shake with food-grade citric acid dissolved in hot water to neutralize everything, then two more hot water rinses.

Of course, you’re in the garage and the hot water is in the house, and you have to carry buckets of water through the wind and rain for every rinse. And then it’s back out through the rain to find an out-of-the-way place to dump the water. Then you go back into the house for more hot water. This is not a fun job on a good day, let alone a day with gale force winds and cold rain.

By the time I’d cleaned the first container, I was exhausted. We have four of them. Three of those containers have nothing but the tiniest opening on top. So all you can do to get them clean is to shake, shake, shake the hell out of them. Thankfully one of our containers, the ridiculously expensive Italian one, has a wide mouth on top so you can reach in and scrub.

Olive oil containers drying in guest room

My only consolation was that when I came back into the house after I finished that horrible job, Rick had made the most delicious fried green tomato and chili pepper frittata I’d ever tasted.

I also felt the satisfaction of a difficult job well done.

Those olive oil containers were cleaner than the day they were made.

And we were finally ready for the harvest.

–

Read the next post: Olive harvest on a misty day

See other posts about olives and olive oil.