Production

Production

There are several hundred varieties of olives and a very good oil can result from most of them, however only as long as the fruit is healthy, the olives are ground on the day of harvest and the oil is properly stored.

In order to produce a very good olive oil, the olives must be ground within a few hours after harvest before the water in them begins to ferment and the oil oxidises.

The longer olives are stored after harvest and not processed, the worse the quality of the oil will be.

For the production of a quality extra virgin oil, it is essential to harvest when the ripening fruit begins to change colour, hardly any green olives remain and some are already fully ripened.

In contrast, the gourmet olive oil (first cold pressed) is extracted from green olives before they are fully ripe (harvest in October / November) and overwhelms though its first-class quality exquisitely intense and fruity taste.

The best and also most expensive method of harvesting is hand-picking or manually stripping the olives with rakes or long sticks.

Leaves, twigs, small stones and sand are washed from the olives, which are then weighed.
Grinding takes place either with hammer crushers or millstones which break up the olive and release the oil. This produces a uniform paste which is then slowly churned and mixed for 20 to 40 minutes, allowing the smaller droplets of oil released by the milling process to aggregate and later be more easily separated. The recommended temperature of mixing the olive paste for a very good olive oil is approximately 25° C.
The oil paste is then pressed to extract the oil and water. The best oil is produced in the first cold pressing.
The oil is separated from the water using centrifuges.
The pure olive oil is then filled into bottles or tanks. The stainless steel storage tanks ensure optimal conditions for preserving quality, as the oil is perfectly safe here from oxygen, light and other environmental influences.

Tasting

Olive oil should be tasted at room temperature, which is perfect for the full aroma spectrum to develop.

Composition

An olive is composed of:

  • Oil: 18-32%
  • Water: 40-55%
  • Pit and plant tissue: 23-35%.
  • Olivenhain
  • Ernte Oliven