Olive harvesting period in Tuscany: everything you need to know
The olive harvest is a significant and very delicate process for the purpose of achieving a high level of extra virgin olive oil. For this reason, Villa Campestri Olive Oil Resort adopts the best method and takes advantage of the ideal olive harvesting period in Tuscany. Find out more about this fascinating world!
Harvesting methods: manual harvesting techniques and mechanical harvesting
Manual methods are generally to be preferred as they tend not to ruin the olives, reducing damage to the foliage.
Manual techniques can be divided into 4 methods:
Picking: the classic hand-picking does not damage the fruit and is certainly the ideal method for obtaining a very quality oil.
Combing: method by which the branches are “combed” with a special rake, thus making the olives slide on a special net located at the beginning of the trunk of the plant; effective to always obtain a quality oil.
Harvesting: it is nothing more than the simple harvest of the olives that have fallen spontaneously, it offers a low quality oil as the olives are too ripe.
Bacchiatura: technique according to which the trees are beaten in order to make the fruits fall into special nets, risk of damaging the olives.
Mechanical harvesting: skinning, a method reminiscent of beating the trees, but with mechanical pliers operated by tractors, has the remarkable ability to save a lot of time, you must always be very careful about damaging the fruits.
The right period of olive harvest in Tuscany
The olive harvesting period in Tuscany takes place between the end of October and the beginning of December, in fact in this period the olive reaches the right ripeness, changing its color from green to black, the so-calledveraison.
This is the ideal time, in fact this is how the greatest quantitative concentration of oil and phenolic substances is obtained, which give fruit to the organoleptic and nutritional qualities of the oil.
The method and process used by Villa Campestri
The olive harvest at Villa Campestri takes place exclusively manually: we have decided to use this system, which involves a longer process than the one that uses the machines, because it does not stress, as previously mentioned, the olive tree and does not risk damaging the olives themselves.
To harvest the olives, we therefore use a manual method that allows you to take the olives away but without damaging the leaves and the tree.
The olives are harvested and immediately brought to our mill, so as to arrive within 24 hours of harvesting: here the pressing process begins immediately to obtain the extra virgin olive oil within the day.
The olive harvest lasts about a month and must be completed before the arrival of the great cold: otherwise, in fact, the risk is that the olives can be damaged.
Woods nearby the groves create a microclimate that makes it possible for us to avoid phytosanitary treatment of our plants and hence produce organic superior quality extra virgin olive oil.
Seeing is believing!
If you want to see how the olive harvest takes place at Villa Campestri Olive Oil Resort we are waiting for you during the harvest period, if you want to try our oil you just have to come and visit us or order it by e-mail to receive it directly at home!
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