Olivery News — olives

Telegraph Hill awarded Champion Olives in the 2014 Royal Easter Show Olive Oil awards.  This is the third year running we have received this award, a great reward for the team here. The award winning olives were our Traditional Olives.  One assumes the judges liked the classic taste of these where we keep the salt low so that the olive flavour shines.

This article Cereal for Breakfast? Pass the EVOO got me thinking why not?  I already use olive oil at every other meal time so lets not hold back from breakfast.  I recommend using a fruity or delicate oil so that the pepperyness or pungency doesn't influence your porridge too much.  I enjoyed it but did hold off on the sliced garlic!

October 2013 we moved 31 Kalamata trees.  They had a good growing season over the summer resulting in a good amount of foliage.  They then have 'sat around' for the winter with no growth at all.  The tallest trees are now around 2 meters and the smallest only up to my knees.Some of the tender shoots have been slightly frosted, which will slow down the spring growth.  This morning we had a minus 4 degree frost in parts of Hawke's Bay, a chilly start.  You can see the damage here.  Sigh!

Olives picked today are processed tonight.  Here is some pictures from last nights processing. I find the olives always look better at night, I think it is 'selective seeing' in the low light...certainly the spills look smaller until the next day. I use this equipment to deleaf and size out the small olives.  The large olives go into barrels and vats for fermentation in brine and the smalls get pressed for oil within 24 hours..