Lee and Peter Sailing Trip was for Four not Two Years. Now an Italian adventure

Last year (2021) we were in Lentella in October during the olive harvesting season. The olives are harvested with an abbacchiatore. It is sort of like two large hands clapping. The general rule is for a small number of trees, harvest by hand. Up to 40 trees use an electric abbacchiatore run from a car battery. For more trees a hydrualic abbacchiatore powered by a gasoline or diesel compressor is used. I suspect more powerful lithium batteries will change this equation soon.

A large net is placed on the floor and the abbacchiatore shakes the branches and the olives fall off. The olives are then taken to the press and turned into oil. All around you hear the clacking of the abbacchiatores.

A farmer who is a relative of the previous owner harvested our olives in 2021 and we were not involved. We saw them harvesting. A 5 litre can of olive oil appeared at our door. More on the oil later, it is not at all like you get in the supermarket.

This year (2022) our neighbor called Nando, whose grandfather built the house wanted to help clear the overgrown land as a memory to his grandfather. We thought he meant the area close to the house. He turned up with a tractor and a big “grass cutter” and cleared all the land, near the house, a wide open area and around the olive groves. He transformed the place. Previously it was difficult to walk around the land but now it all open. We discovered more grape vines and fruit trees. A major change our grounds look like a park now!.

He wanted to harvest the olives this year. Apparently the 5 liters we got last year was far to little a share. So we contacted the previous farmer and said that since our neighbor had cleared the land we would share the olives with him. A case of slowly getting control rather that things just happening. It seems everyone knows our house and is related to the builder!

Later, coming up to harvest time, Nando told us the olives were not worth harvesting, they had become infected with a worm and that ruined the taste. We had a big discussion down the bar. Apparently it happens every 20 years or so. Nando took us over to our olives and showed us the damaged olives with worm and mildew. Such a shame. Reading the Facebook forums of other expats in Abruzzo it seems that the infestation is common this year.

We were so disappointed we wanted to help with the harvest and the pressing and we had run out of last year’s oil.

The bar brought out some oil and bread to put on the counter. Someone else went home and came back with a liter of their oil and we compared taste. The private oil was far superior. He said we could keep it so we had 1 liter. Nando also said he would let us have 5 liters from last years stock and brought it around to our house next day. Later we met Nando by his house when we were out for a walk. He popped into his house and came out and gave us 500ml of this years olive oil, a giant goose egg, a lettuce and a bottle of his own made red wine. The kindness and friendliness of people is amazing.

The olive oil here is totally different to what you buy in the supermarket. It is cloudy but will settle, has a beautiful fresh taste and has a spicy chili like punch at the end (you know like wine speak, front taste middle taste and end taste). It is a meal in itself and local people use it on everything. When I (Peter) worked in Devonport Dockyard 50 years ago we would poor gravy over everything. Here in Lentella we poor olive oil over everything! Such a nice life.

Fresh and then settled Olive Oil