Olive Harvest Underway

The olive harvest is underway at Fonte de Baixo. As the autumn mists and mild frosty mornings arrive the olives are ready to be harvested. Picking is a slow but leisurely meditation, a time to chat with friends, neighbours and family; share lunch and a glass of wine and at the end of the day rest wearily in front of the fire.

To pick the olives we place nets around the base of each tree and pick and prune as we go along. The olives fall onto the nets and are then gathered up in wicker baskets ready to be taken to the grinding mill. The goats love the pruned branches and eagerly munch their way through the cuttings.

Once the buckets are all filled we take them down to the village olive press in Pedrogao Pequeno were friends and neighbours come together to help each other with the grind, filtering and bottling processes...another wonderful opportunity to chat, nibble of a variety of snacks donated by each local house hold and drink another glass of wine or two. It has been known for a song or two to break out...obviously encouraged by the wine and good company.

The olives in Pedrogao Pequeno are crushed between a large stone grinding wheel and a granite rolling bed the same way it has been done for hundreds of years. Each batch of olives are ground 3 times to produce different grades of oil:

• Extra Virgin oil - first grind


• Virgin oil - second grind and,


• Base oil on the third and final grind

Each grade of oil is used for different culinary and domestic uses.

Attached is a useful link for some of the many uses of olive oil:

http://www.onlinedegree.net/40-cool-and-surprising-uses-for-olive-oil/