Just another week in a vineyard!

So my adventures this past week have brought me closer to my return to the states but also so much closer to the answer of all this nutritional studying about the Mediterranean Diet.....olive harvest.  This week we worked in San Polo in the region of Chianti.  Pruneti Olive Oil, two brothers loaded with 15,000 olive trees, vineyards filled with grapes and saffron.  It was an amazing experience and I enjoyed it as much if not more than picking grapes.

The work day was short, much shorter than back in September because of daylight and preference of weather. We picked at 7:30 in the morning until about 12:30 lunch time.  The process was all done by hand, small rake and involved climbing.  It was a very cathartic work, I enjoyed the calmness and the stillness.  With the grapes, there were good ones and bad ones, in olive harvest they are all picked and typically they are all acceptable.  We also got to work in the pressing factory that the brothers run this time of the year.  The pressing mill runs 24hours a day for approximately 50 days and they sleep in shifts and take their olives and their clients olives very seriously.  The machines are very expensive and they settle for no one else using or handling the equipment.

We got to interact with many of the Pruneti's clients that came in and pressed their olives.  Once the olives are picked they have to be pressed immediately for best quality to ensure low acidity, to ensure Extra Virgin.  We saw the lime green liquid flowing at all hours of the day and we also of course got to taste many of the mixes and pure oils that the brothers have.

I was very impressed with such a large scale operation and how knowledgable they were.  No one could have a similar experience, I enjoyed it very much.

Below are a few photos of my adventure, Chianti I have taken for granted, plainly because I have visited it numerous times and the landscape views are the norm for me now, but let me remind you as I am standing in these olive trees picking olives, with messy hair, and big yellow gloves, smelling the freshness of all the olive trees surrounding me, outside of those branches is a landscape and a beauty like no other.  Really I was spoiled but I mean it is Italy.