Gold for Cadenela, or otherwise said - ladies and gentlemen, start your engines!

I thought about grouping all the results on various competitions in one single post, but my ego is recalcitrant to keep silent and quiet, hence - we've already won a gold medal, and got again listed in Monocultivar olive oil guide by Mr.Celletti!

Ok, for now this is it but we have more coming in the spring (of course I will not manage to keep quiet and let you know in no time).

Before I leave you, here's a screenshot of the chemical analysis of this year's oil - quite good given the annus horribilis we've endured.

All this is good and nice, you may say, but how does it taste? In comparison with the muted tastes of many Istrian oils of this 2013 harvest, the pungency is quite present, with low levels of bitterness, and mild grassy/fruity aromas. But forget words, come and try it by yourself!

The nature of time

In this unusally mild and rainy winter, dotted by the seldom spots of sun, I went for a leisurely check in the orchards. Winter is usually nature's time-off and does give us the time for a recap of the passed year, to draw plans for the next, and to enjoy the fruits of last year's work. I say usually as this year we have not tasted winter yet, and the orchards do require some attention when the gods of the seasons play tricks on us.

One is never really alone on such walks - all the inhabitants, if quieted by the sudden appearance of humans, swiftly reappear as if they knew it's not a hunter wandering around, but rather the keeper of their land. The odd rabbit jumping around, the buzzard looking down from the tallest tree of the nearby wood, and all the range of small birds singing from their hidings.

This time a small, uncommon difference followed me through my walk in the younger yards - the singing was much closer, coming from within the orchard, very close. I started paying attention and noticed the sparrows were hiding in the foliage of the young trees, and there it struck me. Our plants, little more than a dozen or two of leaves two years ago, are now big enough for birds to deem them a safe haven! An emotional moment, I confess. And another reminder of time passing, not just as something lost, but of new opportunities found.

Wish you all a year full of discoveries!

A sparrow, out of the safe comfort of our olives

Merry Christmas!

And all the best from all of us!

Harvest time has come!

I'm writing while it's raining outside - and it is has been so for days already. Those who know say it'll last for a few days more, but it should end by mid week. Not really interesting, is it? But it's a quite important bit of info as I've been (nervously, I have to admit) checking the olives for the last weeks, and we're ready to go! So, harvest time has come, and if you'd like to join us in fileds or at the mill, do let me know, as next weekend we'll start picking!

A forgotten tale

Past lives and stories have always had a special charme to me. An old letter, a path in the fields covered by growth, a roman ruin. If one looks hard enough, it is too easy to notice all the signs of days gone by, of hard work and dreams.

Sometimes they are exposed, standing so clear to remain unnoticed, obvious, and sometimes remain veiled and ask for a second look, and a second tought. In this angle of the Mediterranean, where hands have shaped, reshaped, covered and unearthed many layers, the shifts to city life of the past decades has allowed the nature to regain control of landscapes long held by man. I'd like to take you to such a place.

On our usual summer sailing route there's a well protected bay we like to stay - clear water, not much crowded, with a nice restaurant a short walk through the woods.

There's an almost hidden path that takes you from a small pier at the end of the bay to the restaurant - at first glance one does not take notice of it, as the eyes get slowly accustomed to the dim light filtering down the  pine tree woods.

Walking through the quite thick undergrowth, something familiar but not easily definable starts to intrigue me - there's something in this forest that does not fit. Step after step, it suddently becomes clear: we're walking through an olive orchard! In between the slender pines and cypresses, the contorted grey olive logs now show themselves to my eyes, concious of the double nature of their surroundings.

The walk now takes a completely new dimension, and becomes a walk through time - what is now a thick pine forest, in days gone by used to glow of the silvery green nuances of the olive leave.

Grey, fossilized like old bones, the reminders of a different landscape and of the people that created it, the olives accompany you on a summer's eve walk, like roman milestones indifferent to their forgotten purpose.

Then, if you did not wonder off the beaten path, you may see this signal

which quickly reminds you of the reason you took that walk altogether - and believe me, it won't disappoint you - if you're into grilled fish or lamb. It's a bit rustic and unrefined, but with a lot of soul.

The needle and the damage done

This little insect is becoming the main summer blues down here in Istria, and more often than not in the last days, Neil Young's song from which I shamelessly stolen the title for this post, is coming to my mind. The little bug is piercing a huge number of small olives, and as the situation is standing at the moment we are looking at a 50%+ loss of harvest.

A fistful of damage

Not a good outlook, especially as the instruments available to limit the damage are almost non-existent. But, as in any other field, any event brings lessons to be learned and has some positive, although minor, sides.

Something is still hanging on!

Some of the olives managed to survive, and are becoming "too big to fail" as the pierces now are just becoming an aesthetic issue, rather than life-or-death.

Another one (or two) bites the dust

On another side, we came to know and understand this problem before full production and whilst the majority of trees are still very young, which will lead to proper preparation for next year and to a bigger growth of the trees this year, since they do not have to feed all those olives (hopefully meaning more olives next year!).

Bue sky within

And all that happening before the olive fly even beginning its offensive...Which may give you an idea why organic is sometimes more expensive than "normally" grown food!

Still, working hard as there's less than 100 days to harvest. Looking forward to the dawn of that day!

Olive fruits - the missing, the missed, and the survivors (an early overview)

It's still quite early for a proper assessment of where this year will bring us, but few weeks after the flowers left place for the olive fruits we can give you some bits and pieces about where we're standing - we'll still have to wait for the end of the summer for any conclusions!

The leccino (which gives a quite balanced, gentle oil) has been a bit of a misfirer - lots of flowers but not that generous in fruits, maybe because the pendolino (another variety that is supposed to pollinate it) almost completely forgot to blossom. Here's how a branch of leccino is looking now:

Not really crowded!

Of the other varieties, the bianchera (which in contrast to the leccino, gives a peppery, spicy oil) is handling quite well. You can see from the below picture that the branches are well populated (the tiny dots close to the leaves!):

Probably a serious discussion going on...

Some of you may remember my earlier post on pests (excuse the pun) which sits just below this one: anyway, here's the link for the lazy. It turned out the little bug is causing problems: we released our team of specialists to chech the population:

Note the special net used by the young assistant!

And we found quite a number of those insects on our trees, which prompted us to spray some repellent on the trees. Here you can see what a catch looks like:

The insects are marked in red - the others are their victims

One is never happy to see them around in numbers, as in few days they decimate the still small fruits by piercing them to feed and breed (here's a picture of a sliced olive, few millimetres in diameter):

Piercing

What happens afterwards is that the young fruit, fatally wounded, dies - too early, too young. I'd rather see their glorious end by being poured, as oil, on a steak, rather than see them fall by the beak?mouth? of a small brown insect!

Anyway, we're doing our best to bring you a fantastic oil this year too, and the path to harvest is still long ...