Harvest Updates
After months of anticipation (and in all honesty, no small amount of emotional nail-biting), the 2024 harvest preparations at Luretík have begun. The list of things to do can be overwhelming, and this year is no different: booking multiple milling appointments, scheduling crews to pick, arranging transport for the olives, cleaning stainless tanks, tagging crates, laying nets, and most importantly gauging the proper moment to pick the different olive varieties in our grove.
Over the last few weeks, the tips of my thumbs and index fingers have blackened from performing daily “squeeze tests” on the olives, part of my morning routine when walking the grove. As it turns out, all olives are not created equal, and “readiness for picking” can be deceptive. A variety that appears bright green and unripe may easily cede its oil when gently squeezed (Nocellara) while another that is shiny and black only appears overripe, as its inner flesh is white and perfect for picking (Cerausola). Experience and knowledge of varietal characteristics are critical in determining the optimal moment to harvest.
I often say that olives are a bit like children, each with their own personality and distinctive traits. Some are simply “more challenging” than others, whether that translates into needing extra care to protect them from pests and disease or requiring more physical effort to remove them from the tree. Yet, if treated well, all give us olive oils that are singular and lovely in their own way, extra virgins whose flavor profiles are never exactly the same from one season to the next.
Not everything, of course, is in my control. In the weeks prior to picking, I spend a lot of time checking the 10 -day weather forecast and looking skyward. Mother Nature looms large in the harvest picture, all too often indifferent to my desires and ready to derail the best laid plans (as she did in 2023 with an unexpected rain delay). Even with all the pieces seemingly in place, there is still the final bit of angst: getting the olives to the mill as quickly as possible because olives degrade rapidly once removed from the tree. And I have personal experience with this particular type of angst.
On the final day of harvest last year, I slipped in the early morning darkness on a steep slope, minutes before leaving in a truck loaded with 5,000lbs of olives. Staring down at what was a clearly broken ankle and keenly aware of what a delay would mean for the quality of our oil, I made a quick and relatively easy decision. Short term pain until the ankle could be set was certainly preferable to the long-term pain of oil compromised by a milling delay. With a year’s worth of work on the line, I waved goodbye to my olives at the door of the local hospital emergency room, consoled only later in the day by a call from my miller. The oil was excellent, and he had even christened it - Broken Ankle Blend (later to be renamed Luretík Meridione, our oil that went on to win a Double Gold Medal at the 2024 Athena International Extra Virgin Competition).
A happy ending, but that said, I will definitely be “watching my step” in the grove this year!