First, a view of the castle from the top of an olive tree:
Late fall in Italy means the olive harvest, and that's probably what I'll be doing for the next five weeks (one more week here at the castle, then I move on to a farm further north nearer the coast). While there are various mechanized methods of harvesting, here they use the old fashioned way: by hand.
These olives are ready to pick when some of the olives on the tree start to turn purple and black:
First, you lay out a net under a tree to catch the olives:
Then you reach up with your hands or a small rake and start pulling olives off the tree one branch at a time. Some people use ladders, some stay on the ground, and some like to climb the tree and attack from the inside. Somehow, I always feel safer in the tree, even if I'm balancing on one foot at the very top.
After we've pulled (almost) every last olive from a tree, we lift the net and gather them into one corner, where we pull out any large branches.
We then tip all the olives into crates, where they wait to be taken to the press.
At Potentino, they press at least every three days, and the sooner you press the olives the better. They take their olives to a very well-regarded press ('frantoio') a few towns over. There, you empty your small crates into their very large ones, they weigh your olives, and then the olives wait their turn to go into the press:
The whole operation is very high-tech, and being one of the best presses in Italy, they don't allow anyone to photograph the inside of the press.
A few days later, they call to say you can pick up your new oil, which is much greener and spicier than the same oil after a few weeks or months. Here, with some mozzarella straight from Naples:
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Location:Potentino, Seggiano, Toscana, Italia
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