When Life Gives You Olives…

Since we’re in the middle of blending, I thought that it would be the perfect time to fill you in on how it all happens. We start the blending process by tasting each and every batch of oil that we have. During the tasting, the oil is rated in quite a few categories, these being the most important (see below for definitions of the terms used):

• Check for defects in the oil.
• Rate the fruitiness of each oil and determine whether that fruitiness is from green fruit or ripe fruit.
• Rate the bitterness.
• Rate the pungency.
• Rate the intensity of the oil, both in flavor and aroma.
• Next, check for balance and complexity.
• Finally, we go back and try to pick out individual flavors and aromas, along with mouthfeel and persistence.

After all of the ratings are compiled in a spreadsheet, we look for the oils that really stand out with high ratings. Those oils become the base for the particular blend (Estate, Foothills Blend or end blend).

We then come up with the percentages of each oil to go into the final olive oil and do a test blend of only 5 ounces. That test blend is allowed to settle out and come together over a 24-hour period. After that time is finished, we taste the blend and rate it again, comparing these new ratings with the expected results. We’ll then tweak the blend to add a little flavor here, a little pungency there, some green fruitiness here and some bitterness there.

For the last step, we get out the pumps, pipes and blending vats. All of the oils that we want to use are then combined on a large scale and will soon be ready for bottling. All in all the blending process takes about 4 days to complete. It’s a laborious process (would you want to drink 12-16 ounces of olive oil in the morning–for 2 or 3 days in a row?!) that many other olive oil makers do not follow, but we know it helps to make an extremely reliable and consistent product.

Definitions

Negative Attributes

There are only six major defects that could be present in an olive oil. They are listed below along with a brief explanation of the term. I list the defects first because, if we find them in an oil, it is instantly disqualified from blending. There is no need to go further with that oil, except for soap or lip balm!

1. Fustiness or Muddy Sediment

This is a defect in the handling of the olive oils after milling. This one is the producer’s fault, for sure. Oils with this defect will have a flavor that is exactly like the sediment that settles out of olive oil over time. Since we at Sylverleaf don’t filter our olive oils, we have to pay particular attention to a racking schedule (blog soon to follow on racking) to ensure that this defect doesn’t pop up. If you’ve never smelled olive meat after milling, this one is a little difficult to describe… Basically, it is caused by anaerobic fermentation and has that characteristic flavor and smell.

2. Musty / Humid / Earthy

We don’t see this much in the US, but the oils have a certain “wet” quality. You can almost taste humidity and mold in the oil. This defect is caused by large concentrations of fungi and yeasts on the olives prior to milling. Typically, it is caused by olives sitting at the mill, waiting to be processed (for several days) in wet or humid conditions.

3. Winey / Vinegary / Acidic / Sour

Just like it sounds, you’ll sense an off wine flavor, or a strong flavor of vinegar and sourness. This is caused by aerobic fermentation in the olives or poor cleaning techniques at the mill. If a racking schedule is not closely adhered to, an olive oil producer might see this defect.

4. Metallic

You won’t taste this one very often, but it is a flavor that tastes exactly like metal. It is also due to prolonged exposure to metals (not stainless steel) in the processing or storage of the oil. If you buy oil in a tin container, you know this flavor well.

5. Rancid

This is a perception that many people equate with olive oil. This is because we, in the USA, have been forced to purchase low quality olive oils at the supermarket. Many of these imported and heavily processed oils are thoroughly rancid. It is a flavor that we can instantly recognize. Many times, this defect manifests itself by a distinct flavor of cardboard, wax or Play Doh.

6. Other

This is the most difficult to define! This can be any perception of flavor or aroma or mouthfeel that is just not right. For instance, a strong flavor of wet wood indicates that the olives were injured by frost before harvest. Another good example is the taste of rotten bacon. This flavor is caused by an infestation of the olive fruit fly (Bactrocera oleae (Diptera, Tephritidae)) in an orchard (a very common problem around the world, but easily treated with organic-approved sprays). There are quite a few of these defects that just don’t fit into any other category, so they go here.

Positive Attributes

1. Fruitiness

Fruitiness is just that, how fruity in flavor and aroma is the oil. Is that fruitiness from green fruit (think green grass, artichoke, green olive, green banana, herbs) or from ripe fruit (ripe apple, ripe banana, floral, buttery, nutty or tropical flavors). A good balance of both green and ripe fruit is what we strive for at Sylverleaf.

2. Bitterness

People usually cringe when we talk about bitterness, but it is a vital quality to an olive oil. Olives are bitter, green or ripe, they’re bitter. That bitterness is what makes olive oil so versatile and interesting. Here at Sylverleaf, we shoot for the mid to lower range of bitterness, but it’s always there.

3. Pungency

Pungency is that biting, cough-inducing sensation at the back of your throat when you taste a very fresh olive oil. It is not a strong sensation in a Spanish style olive oil, but if you’ve ever tasted a true Italian oil, it is THE sensation. If you like Verde, then you’re a fan of pungency. The Estate will have a good bit of pungency, but the Foothills Blend won’t have much of it at all.

4. Intensity

The intensity of the oil is a rating of both flavor and aroma. It defines just how much the flavors and smells stand out. Typically, our Verde will have high intensity ratings, the Sylverleaf Estate will have a medium intensity and the Foothills Blend will be medium to medium-low intensity.

5. Balance

This is an attribute that we spend quite a bit of time perfecting. Balance is a judgement of how the oil hits your senses. If an oil is very well balanced, no one flavor or smell will jump out above the rest. Everything will just meld together to give a single snapshot of that oil. If one attribute does jump out at you, like bitterness or maybe green grass smells, then that oil is not balanced (not that this is a negative, but just not as positive).

6. Complexity

Complexity is hard to define, but easy to sense. Basically an oil is complex if one can pull out a wide range of flavors and smells when tasting the oil. In our opinion, the more complex, the better (keeping an eye on balance is the trick!).

7. Mouthfeel

This rating attempts to define how the oil feels in your mouth. Is is waxy in texture? Greasy? Can you feel the oil in your mouth long after you have swallowed it?

8. Persistence

Persistence is a measure of how long the flavors and aromas stay with you after ingesting the olive oil sample. A good oil will be somewhat persistent, but not obnoxious or overwhelming.

I hope that this post helps you to understand the craft of making olive oil a little better. If you have any questions, please send them to me. I do answer all questions!

I promised some tasting notes a few weeks ago, but have just now had the time to actually go back and taste the oil. So, olive oil nerds, here you go:

On the nose this release of Verde has notes of artichoke, green grass, ripe olives and a faint hint of olive flower.

In the mouth, you’ll notice the smooth taste of ripe olives, green apple, white pepper and leafy green, herbaceous notes. There is a mild pungency with very little bitterness.

In a few words, this is a classic smooth Spanish style olive oil. Very easy to use, not “in your face,” and very versatile.

As a side note, this is the first oil that we have produced that contains our new varieties, Picual, Hojiblanca and Arbequina along with the classic Mission and Manzanillo.

Enjoy!

I just thought that I’d create a link to a recent blog post over at SMARTLIFEWAYS. It contains some great links and an excellent view of farmers’ markets from a consumer/visitor point of view.

SmartLifeways Blog

Enjoy!

The latest installment of the Sylverleaf Press is finally available. Head over to the Newsletters section of our website to have a look at the newest newsletter. In it, we have updates for our Sylverleaf Estate and end blend fans, notes regarding the upcoming olive harvest and links to follow Sylverleaf on your favorite social media platform; this blog, Facebook and Twitter. Happy Reading!

This is the first installment of several in a new series of blogs called, It’s a Matter of Taste. In this series, I’ll attempt to clarify how you, as a consumer, can approach olive oils and evaluate them. I’ll also do my best to explain some common myths and misconceptions regarding olive oils. If you have questions along the way, send them to me and I’ll work the answers into a future post.

Search With Confidence

Before one can begin the journey along the path to olive oil addiction, one must learn to differentiate between a good oil and a bad oil. Believe it or not, many people prefer rancid Bertolli olive oil over a high-quality olive oil in their first blind tasting (including your humble narrator). This is because these rancid, horrible flavors are what we, as consumers, have come to expect from olive oils. These flavors are familiar to us. It’s no wonder that many people simply say, “Oh, I don’t like olive oil.” When this series concludes, we hope that you’ll be well-equipped with the knowledge you need to go out to your favorite market, or better yet to an olive oil producer, and choose with confidence an EVOO that you’ll love.

Magic Formula

Unfortunately, there is no magic formula or even a simple test to determine the best olive oil. Although olive oil has been consumed for millennia, we have no truly scientific way to evaluate an oil for quality or flavor. It is a purely personal experience. There are a battery of chemical tests that can be used to predict the shelf life of olive oils, to gauge their worthiness to be called extra virgin and to determine if the olive oil is adulterated with other oils (as discussed in an earlier post). It is a priority for Sylverleaf to always provide the results of the chemical analysis of our olive oils in the Harvest Records section of our website. Other than these chemical tests, which very few olive oil producers make available to the consumer, how does one attempt to choose an olive oil with any certainty as to the quality? It’s simple, consult with your nose and mouth! I’ll tackle these two senses in the next couple of posts. One thing that I can tell you now: The label on the bottle is not going to help you.

Myth #1

Myths and misinformation abound in the industry; here in the US and abroad. One of the first bits of of misinformation comes on the label that sits on each handsome bottle. In the US, the labeling law for olive oil was written in the 1940s, when the terms extra virgin, virgin, and pure were not even in use! So, as of right now, 2009, there is no legal definition for these terms in US law!

An unscrupulous olive oil producer can simply combine a small portion of decent extra virgin olive oil with a large portion of any other oil and still call it extra virgin. Legally.

A producer can also take an old olive oil, with all the terrible flavors that old oil imparts, and run that oil through carbon filters. This filtering removes most all of the color, flavor and smell from the olive oil. Then, the producer can add some EVOO back into the colorless, flavorless and odorless liquid, then call it extra virgin. Again, legally.

I hope that you’ll read the two previous paragraphs again and let that information sink in.

These myths do, however, have one upside. They enable a consumer to walk into a supermarket and buy a gallon of “extra virgin olive oil” for $10. The product on the shelf is not really olive oil, much less an extra virgin olive oil. I’m not trying to say that all olive oils on the supermarket shelves are out to deceive the consumer. There are some large olive oil producers that make a fine product. I hope to give you the information that you will need to find those olive oils as this series unfolds. So, come back for the next installment, where I tackle an olive oil’s color. You’re going to be surprised.

For my final post of the day (I promise), I’d like to wish one of Sylverleaf’s favorite chefs good luck! The San Francisco Chronicle’s Inside Scoop has this to say:

“At Ame (689 Mission St.), executive chef Greg Dunmore will leave the kitchen Oct. 21. The 2006 Chronicle Rising Star chef says he’s pursuing his own venture, but says, “I can’t talk about it until I know that it’s a done deal.”

In the meantime, he plans to fill in as a guest chef around town and take some hard-earned vacation time. He’s been working at Ame since the restaurant opened in the St. Regis Hotel in 2005.”

We’ll miss this awesome chef and wish him “Olive the Best!”

These past two years we have been overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of wasps; mud daubers, red wasps, rice field wasps, paper wasps, meat bees, hornets, yellow jackets and those freakin’ black paper wasps with the yellow stripes. I’m sure that I’m forgetting one or two other types in my rant…

Recently, as we sat outside, looking at the orchard, enjoying our time, we were constantly harassed by a paper wasp that was building a nest in the siding of our house. Being thoroughly annoyed by this creature as it crashed into me, then into the house, then finally into a gap in the siding, I decided to closely observe the little creature.

The more I watched, the more I realized that wasps are the drunk drivers of the insect world. They bounce off of everything as they make a tortured and twisted “line” to where ever it is that they are going. It’s even worse when they’re building a nest, carrying a hunk of saliva and chewed up wood or mud. That extra gob of stuff really tips their navigation from haphazard to straight-up hazard.

Knowing that we didn’t have the motivation to eliminate the nest just yet, we tried to slow the nest building progress by jamming rosemary branches (it was nearby) into the hole.  That didn’t work. So, we jammed even more rosemary into the hole and it still didn’t work. It slowed them down a little, but they found their merry way through the tangle. Soon enough, the wasps would pop out of the hole, peek around a bit, then inelegantly fly off.

Fortunately, neither of us got stung that day, but I can’t tell you how many hit-and-runs there were…

My last blog was a long one… I’m still worn out from it. I hope that you got some useful information out of the post and that it clears up some of the mystery that surrounds the term extra virgin.

Now, on to other stuff. The blending of the end blend was completed a few weeks ago. The 2009 release is now in the bottle and selling quite well at the farmers’ markets (sorry, no Internet orders this year) and direct from our tasting room. We bottled more than 20 cases of this (very) limited production olive oil, so get it while you can. Come by to see us, try the oil, then buy every bottle! We’re offering the end blend at $16 per 500ml bottle. There will be no 250ml and no gallons (sorry).

This year’s release starts of very smooth, with a marked green olive flavor, then it progresses to some unique tropical flavors (think banana and mango), then comes the back of the throat kick of pungency. The finish is slightly sweet with a slight hint of bitterness. The end blend is a little hotter than our normal oils, so if you like ‘em medium to intense in flavor, this oil is for you.

For those of you who are not familiar with this olive oil, it is a special blend of oils that we don’t normally use for our Sylverleaf blends. In fact, the end blend is composed of oils that we use to make other olive oils for other olive oil companies! There are always a few gallons of this oil and a few gallons of that oil and a few more gallons of another oil that we have left over. So, we put them all together and see what happens. It turns out, this produces a very tasty and unique olive oil. You just have to try it.