Friends helping friends. That was the theme of the 2024 harvest.
Like all harvests this one started much earlier in the year. In February Colin completed the potatura (pruning) of all the trees. Cutting out all the growth in the middle of the tree and reducing the density of the rest to allow air to flow and generate space for new growth. As we follow the DOP rules that was the only thing we did to the trees all year. Otherwise we leave it to Mother Nature.
The most satisfying part was when Colin did the potatura for some friends who’d never done it before. The olives hadn’t been pruned for several years. A lot to do.
To give you an idea, this tree had grown to about 5m, way too tall to harvest. It needed some heavy duty surgery. It grew back remarkably quickly and produced a decent amount of olives this year.
After I’d finished two local gardening companies came to quote for doing the rest of the garden. They both commented on how good the potatura was. When they were told it was an Englishman they both said “No, that’s impossible. No Englishman knows how to do the potatura.” I’m very proud of that!
Fast forward to October.
We’ve been friends with Rob and Helen for over 30 years. They’ve been to Casa Angeletti a few times but never in the autumn. “Do you fancy helping with the harvest this year by any chance?” we enquired. They were surprisingly keen.
I’d cut the grass before they arrived but I insisted on Rob having the full experience so we went to work cleaning the bases of the trees so they didn’t snag on the nets.
It was a wet week but a couple of dry days were forecast. The die was cast. We would start at 07:30 on the Monday. Rob and Helen were amazing. They worked tirelessly all day, stopping only for a short lunch.
They learnt all about wrapping the base of the tree with a sheet to protect the nets; placing the nets; using the machines to get the olives from the trees; sorting them to remove the leaves and twigs and putting them in the crates ready to take to the press.
As the light faded we called it a day. We’d harvested over four quintale (400kg) of olives. We slept well that night. Just as well as it was another 07:30 start to finish off.
By lunchtime we’d harvested another 150kg just before the rain started, to produce this fine crop:
The next step in the process was to take them to the olive press so that Rob & Helen could see them turned into oil:
Loading
Cleaning
Mashing
Extracting and filtering
“Resa media” is the average yield of olives processed in that press. The yield is the weight of oil in Kg expresssed as a percentage of the weight before processing. Normally we’d expect a yield in the range of 12-17% but this year it rained so much in September and October that the olives had a lot of water in them, hence the local average was 10.21%.
We were lucky enough to get a yield of 11.26%, partly due to the excellent work done to separate virtually all the leaves and twigs before our olives were weighed.
2024 Olio Extra Vergine di Casa Angeletti, Cartoceto DOP
* 561kg of olives (a record haul)
* 63.2 kg of oil
* 11.26% yield
* 69 litres of oil
Just one last step in the process. Enjoy the fruits of our labour on bruschetta. Due to the excess water ths year the flavour is milder than usual with only a hint of a peppery taste on the throat. This will probably disappear quite quickly leaving a very smooth mild flavoured oil for use in salads, soups and for cooking.
Rob and Helen enjoyed the experience so much they’d like to do it again next year! Having experienced a harvest Rob said:
“I’ll never complain about the price of olive oil ever again!”
Having finished the harvest in the early part of their visit we had time to enjoy dinner at Al Mare, the truffle festival in Acqualagna and Morettas in Fano.
They did make one mistake. They booked hand luggage only flights so they couldn’t take their oil back with them. We made them a special edition label on 100ml bottles so that they could at least have some oil back home until we deliver the rest during our Christmas trip to the UK.
Thank you so much guys. You did a great job on the harvest. You’re welcome back for next year’s, or any time.
Our thanks also to Joep and Jelina for lending us their battery raker and crates.
Finally, this year’s label. It’s the same every year except the date and the top photo. The photo reflects something in our lives during the previous 12 months.
We made a big decsion in 2024. To sell Casa Angeletti and return to the UK.
We’re doing this to persue our dream of building our own house. The sunset reflects the coming to and end of our 25 year adventure in Italy. It was taken by Colin but has been used by our Italian estate agent. We have no idea how long it will take to sell but we’re prepared to leave whenever the right offer comes along.
https://www.intermedcasali.com/en/excellently-renovated-country-house.html
Colin and Jan Fisher 