We have discovered that there is such a thing in agriculture as a “bumper crop” and this was a bumper year for us. We harvested three times more olives this year than our last highest year in 2019. The Frantoio were extremely heavy with fruit. The Lecchino weren’t far behind.
The harvest was accomplished over two and a half days with a crew of about thirty aided by our kids who were able to join us. Ladders were moving about like tall giraffes among the trees. The macro bins were constantly being filled and several trips were made to the mill with our bounty.
Once the olives were at the mill, Chacewater millers were busy from early in the morning to late afternoon milling our olives into oil. We always taste right out of the final centrifuge. It’s a very robust, peppery, strong fruity flavor on our palate. All told we loaded up about 200 gallons of oil on the truck for the drive to Fairfield where the oil is bottled into our signature Campodonico Olive Farm EVOO 375 ml bottles. We expect to be ready to sell oil by mid-November online and in person in the SF Bay Area and Lake County. Sign up for our newsletter update on our home page: https://www.campodonico-olives.com/ for more details.
We’ve had some generous rains after harvest and that’s good for the trees who have spent so much energy producing our Tuscan olives. The roots are now free to seek nutrients in the rain-soaked soil. We are grateful that we have had such a successful year, despite the severe drought and prolonged summer heat.
