After harvesting olives for the first time at the end of October, it was finally time to receive the result in December. The harvest had been an interesting process, so we were very curious to see how much oil we were rewarded with. Neighbour João came to bring it to us just before Christmas.

At the beginning of November we finished picking the olives, but then it took another week or two before the neighbour came to pick them up. Apparently, the olive mill hadn’t opened sooner, so he couldn’t bring them before. We were afraid that the olives would have lost their quality, but João assured us that it didn’t matter, because we had stored them in water. Not even the intense smell was an issue. He loaded the barrels up on his truck and took off.

Percentages

A few days later we met him on the street and he had the results for us. We had picked a total of 207 kilos (which is nothing if you consider we have 250 trees…), of which 9.1% was already in a rotting state. That sounds quite a lot, but apparently it’s a pretty normal score. In addition, we had a percentage of 1 comma something else on another scale. We don’t know for sure, but it was probably the acidity. For extra virgem, the olives can have a maximum acidity of 0.8%. The virgen oils allow for a maximum of 2%. According to the neighbour, this was also an acceptable score.

One of many producers

As we wrote earlier, the olive mill in Portalegre does not make olive oil from the olives that you personally deliver. They collect all the olives from all local producers and choose the olives of the right quality to make their own olive oil. Other olives are sold or processed in some other way. How much you get for the olives you hand in depends not only on the quality and quantity of your own olives, but also those of the other producers. Only when everything has been delivered, do they know how much oil they have been able to produce and who is entitled to which part of it. That’s why we had to wait until mid-December before we got the results.

Proud and happy

Shortly before Christmas, João came to bring the result: 10 liters of olive oil in two large bottles. The brand that our olive mill produces is called Azeite São Mamede, named after the mountain range of which Portalegre is part. Despite the fact that we had fantasized about huge amounts beforehand, we were still very happy with the result. How nice is it to have contributed to the making of this oil? And with ten liters we might actually last a whole year. That’s not a huge profit, considering all the hours of harvesting, but it was definitely worth it!