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With Southern Oregon establishing it’s reputation for growing grapes, another warm climate crop is starting to take root.

More than 130 acres between Jacksonville and Medford are the beginning of what some hope will be an olive oil industry in the Rogue Valley.

Olive tree Grower Jeff Hoyal has planted more than 86,000 Greek and Spanish olive varieties he believes are well-suited to this area’s weather and soil.

“We have Koriniki, which is a Greek variety, a very peppery oil. We have Arbisona, which is a Spanish variety and is a very sweet oil. And then we have Arbiqina, which is another Spanish variety, which is a very buttery oil. And all three of them are, historically, create the top quality extra virgin oil that, that you’re really looking for,” Olive Tree Grower Jeff Hoyal said.

The Oregon State University extension service in Southern Oregon is also experimenting with 60 trees in a test plot.

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Beginning with the giant stone wheels crushing the olives.
Next the olive paste is spread onto mats which are stacked up then squeezed together, forcing out the oil.
A centrifuge then separates the water from the oil, it’s that simple!

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Italians live longer than most people. They also consume huge amounts of olive oil — a staple of the Mediterranean diet.

Most Italians are convinced that the two are related. Indeed the ancient Romans so revered olive oil they once used it for currency.

Nowadays Italian olive oil is sold throughout the world. But even if it has “extra vergine” (extra-virgin) and DOP on the label, signifying that the oil is from the first pressing of Italian olives, the quality varies greatly.

Earlier this week we had a chance to talk with some farmers in Southern Tuscany. They believe their oil is special, not only because of the copious use of “organic” fertilizer (ie dung) but also because of the way the olives are harvested.

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Article by Christopher Chung,

Workers are hand-picking olives to be turned into high-priced oil as the harvest season begins for a specialty North Coast crop that has much of the artisan appeal of fine wines.

But the crop is small, and the region’s olive-growing pioneers are closely watching the mechanization that is transforming their fledgling industry elsewhere in California.

A crew of 15 workers at the DaVero orchard in the hills west of Healdsburg painstakingly stripped olives from delicate branches and allowed them to fall onto black fabric tarps for eventual collection into huge bins.

The yield is lighter this year, mostly because of the trees’ typical alternation of light and heavy production, and also because of possible other factors including frost and heavy winds last spring.

California’s olive oil business has grown steadily since 1991 when a few North Coast enthusiasts planted different varieties of Italian trees.

Today the region has more small-scale producers than anywhere else in California. Sonoma County’s estimated 150 growers outnumber those of any other county in the state.

But the industry’s booming growth is happening in the Central Valley, where plantings have quadrupled in the past four years. The Valley now has 17,000 acres of orchards for olive oil, compared to about 2,000 on the North Coast, according to University of California Cooperative Extension.

The growth is due to “super-high-density” orchards and mechanical harvesters that greatly reduce labor costs. Growers there plant 650 to 900 trees per acre, compared to no more than 300 per acre here.

Such techniques make olive oil production profitable on a large scale, said Paul Vossen, the UC Cooperative’s olive oil expert. In contrast, he said, the artisan producers on the North Coast mostly “are doing it for the love of it.”

The number of bottles is relatively small, and the price can be high. A bottle of the DaVero oil, about half the volume of a typical wine bottle, sells for $28.

Ninety-nine percent of the olive oil consumed in the United States comes from abroad. Most of the remaining 1 percent comes from California.

To help the industry grow, UC Davis this year launched the first university-based olive research and education center in North America. The center is part of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science.

And producers this year won legislation requiring olive oil to be labeled according to definitions that meet international standards. State Sen. Pat Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa, author of the legislation, has predicted that olive oil production will grow dramatically within the next five years.

On the North Coast, two of the largest producers are the 22-acre DaVero property and the 80-acre McEvoy Ranch in Marin County southwest of Petaluma. Both planted their first trees 17 years ago.

McEvoy Ranch has a retail outlet in San Francisco’s Ferry Building, and DaVero is seeking to build a tasting room for its olive oil and wine across Westside Road from Madrona Manor.

McEvoy operates its own olive press. Besides handpicking, the workers use hand-held mechanical combs to gently slap together to harvest the fruit.

This year’s harvest will begin a little later and produce a lighter crop, said Jeff Creque, who supervises McEvoy’s mill operations. He expects the harvest to “probably start in earnest next week” and to take about two weeks to complete.

The region’s other producers rely on olive presses operating in Sonoma, Glen Ellen, Dry Creek and Hopland. Many also feature community press days where backyard growers can turn their meager crop of olives into a joint batch of oil.

Deborah Rogers, managing partner at the Olive Press, located south of Sonoma on Arnold Drive, said many of her customers are wineries that enjoy two advantages: extra sections of land on which to plant trees and existing tasting rooms for selling their oils.

Even so, she said, for many growers the effort is a labor of love. A key reason is that “harvest costs in Sonoma County are, to me, off the charts.”

The future here will focus on high-end, artisan oils and possibly include attempts to mix different approaches, for example a Spanish-style oil made with Tuscan olives.

“We are really just getting started on the experimentation,” said Alexandra Kicenik Devarenne, a olive oil consultant and former UC Cooperative Extension staff member.

At DaVero, owner Colleen McGlynn Thursday joked that her husband, NetBooks founder Ridgely Evers, got into the olive oil business due to “faulty math,” namely a calculation based on unusually high Italian oil prices and abnormally low grape prices.

Nonetheless, she said they are making money on their olive oil sales.

Standing on a hilltop with views of Fitch Mountain and Mount St. Helena, McGlynn told how the couple’s first harvest in 1994 yielded 25 gallons. Next came the first-hand lesson that “establishing a brand is really difficult.”

She said she spent hundreds of hours in supermarkets, handing out samples in what proved “a lot of missionary work.”

In olive oil, she explained, you have to take the long view.

Said McGlynn, “You plant grapes for your kids and olives for your grandkids.”

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The show will broadcast live via the internet on Wednesday, September 2, 2008 at 8:00 pm EST. Callers are welcome to listen to the conversation during the show by calling (646) 378-1299.

The live, Internet talk-radio show will stream from The Recipe Box program page at BlogTalkRadio.com.

Founded by Bruce Cohn in 1984 in the heart of Sonoma Valley, BR Cohn Winery is renowned for producing balanced, elegant wines that maintain a standard of excellence from year to year. The olive oil company has recently introduced an Extra Virgin Meyer Lemon Olive Oil to the product line. This is the first citrus blend oil from the company and joins a robust line-up other oils, vinegars, gourmet tapenades and rubs.

Also of note, Bruce is the current manager for multi-platinum touring and recording artists The Doobie Brothers and has been since the band’s inception in 1970. Throughout the ’70s he spent years on the road with them overseeing their rise to fame; often bumping elbows with the likes of The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Journey. Although he’s not on the road as much these days, Bruce still guides their career and the connection is quite evident upon visiting the BR Cohn tasting room, where his love for wine and music are clearly evident.

Each fall, wine lovers and music fans alike flock to the B.R. Cohn Winery Fall Charity Music and Golf Tournament, with proceeds benefiting the Valley of the Moon Children’s Foundation and other youth charity organizations.

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