Olive oils ain’t olive oils

Oil and all: Lyn Jamieson in the olive oil processing area, with a bottle of her award-winning Golden Creek Olives oil.

ANDREW and Lyn Jamieson, owners of Golden Creek Olives, planted their first tree on their Fish Creek farm 11 years ago, and are now producing award-winning oil.
“We have planted seven different varieties so that we can harvest the fruit progressively over the season. Each variety has different flavour characteristics,” Lyn said.
“We have three nationalities of olives: Italian, Greek and Spanish. Coratina, Frantoio, Pendolino and Leccino are the Italian varieties and our Spanish varieties are Picual and Arbequina. Our Greek olive is the Koroneiki variety.
“Usually the season starts with picking the Koroneiki variety during May and we finish the harvest in late June.”
There are many benefits to growing olives in the fertile foothills of South Gippsland.
“We have very few frosts in Fish Creek and the frosts we do have are usually very light. The region has good rainfall, which comes when we need it through the summer period,” Lyn said.
“The regular amount of rainfall ensures that we have good cover on the roots and that keeps the roots cool. The roots and the trunks don’t get sunburnt here either.
“Heat can cause stress and fruit drop. If we have too many hot days, the fruit can deteriorate.
“Olive trees like to have a neutral soil, so we do need to add lime. There is also a boron deficiency in this region, so we apply a foliar spray of boron and other trace elements to give them a boost and a copper spray to combat any fungal problems that can occur in damp conditions, with little wind.”
Harvest time is a very busy period at Golden Creek Olives, with all of the labour and processing done by Andrew and Lyn.
We put shade cloth under the trees, on either side, overlapping at the trunk and we hand harvest, meaning we shuffle along and draw the fruit off the trees and onto the clean shade cloth,” Lyn said.
“We also use a hand held forked tool, powered by a battery pack in a jacket. The tool is combed through the tree and it makes picking a lot quicker and less labour intensive.
“My husband Andrew and I usually do all of the harvesting, with maybe one or two other people assisting us. We pick half a tonne of fruit per day.”
Once the olives have been weighed, they are crushed whole and the oil extraction process starts.
“The process of separating the oil from the paste begins in bins that are slightly heated, to bring the temperature of the paste anywhere between 25 and 30 degrees. You can’t have the paste below around 18 degrees, because it is very difficult to extract the oil at a low temperature,” Lyn said.
“Our method is what is called cold processing. Extra virgin olive oil must be processed below 30 degrees, from fresh, clean fruit, within 48 hours of the fruit being picked.”
Once the paste has gone through the mixer, it is pumped into a horizontal centrifuge, where the oil and the remaining paste separate.
“That waste gets taken to a dairy and is fed to the cows on the rotary, making it a completely closed circle process,” Lyn said.
The Australian Olive Association Code of Practice has been developed to ensure honesty, integrity and authenticity in the labelling of Australian extra virgin olive oil,” Lyn said.
“We have our oils tested every year as part of the accreditation process, so that we can specifically state that our oil meets the Australian extra virgin olive oil criteria.
“We do the planting, the growing, the picking, the processing, the storing, the bottling, the labelling and the selling all on site. It truly is estate grown olive oil.”
Golden Creek Olive Oil is available in a number of retail outlets in South Gippsland, from Foster to Phillip Island.
New season oil should be available from late June.
Visitors are welcome to the farm by appointment for tours and tastings.

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Posted by SiteAdmin on Jun 7 2012. Filed under Featured, Rural News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry