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Our Olive Grove
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Our ranch has close to perfect soil and climatic conditions for growing olive trees and grapes. We are located in a unique microclimate known as the Templeton Gap, which brings moist marine air through a gap in the coastal Santa Lucia range, and guarantees hot sunny days and cool nights throughout the season. It is not unusual at all for the difference of our day and night temperatures even in the summer to be 50 degrees. Our soil is what viticulturists call calcareous – a rather poor, rocky, limestone-based soil that is ideal for olives and grapevines, but for little else. |
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Our grove has approximately 800 trees on four-plus acres, spaced 12 feet by 20. Of the four Tuscan varietals we grow, Leccino and Frantoio cultivars make up 80% and Pendolino and Maurino the rest 20%. The latter two are known as good pollinators and are interspersed among the former to help with pollination, which is normally wind-carried. We also have two dozen Kalamata, Arbequina and Canino trees that we use mostly for table olives for family and friends. |
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The trees are drip-irrigated between June and October and hand-pruned to allow sun and air to circulate through the tree every year. At full maturity, usually reached when the trees are 8 to 10 years old, we could expect a maximum harvest of some 20 tons of olives. The oil content of our olives varies between 15% and 20% depending on stage of ripeness at harvest. We tend to harvest on the greener side to assure the pungent pepperiness of the oil we prefer.
Our orchard will soon be eight years old and is beginning to approach maturity. In 2008 we hand-picked five tons of olives pressed into 180 gallons of oil. At full maturity, an irrigated and properly pruned orchard of the size of ours could yield a maximum harvest of nearly 20 tons of fruit, which translates into some 800 gallons of oil.
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