IN A VALLEY WHERE THE GRAPE IS KING, THE OLIVE IS RIPENING TO TAKE OVER THE THRONE.
WORDS BY D. HEIMPEL
Agust of hot air from the Napa Valley, 800 feet below, sweeps over the ridge where Rachel Casey—one of a growing number of olive oil producers in the valley—has planted the 88 trees that make up Poplar Hill. The green and silver leaves rustle. “We are really the pioneers,” she says of herself and the other producers.
Even though Casey isn’t turning a huge profit on her olives yet, she, like many other local olive cultivators, has decided to farm the unique fruit for reasons beyond just making money. Like Napa’s wine industry 30 years ago, Napa’s olive oil is still finding its niche. As world olive oil production has grown, so has California’s. And while the big producers—Italy and Spain—use tree shakers and warm presses, reducing cost and increasing production, California’s smaller producers take the time to create oils they really love. They import presses, test oleic acid, run tasting tours and make oils that the Italians won’t even enter a blind taste test against.
World olive oil production has increased by 65 percent in the last 15 years, according to the International Olive Oil Council. While the US produces less than one percent of the world’s olive oil, Lisa Deane (who founded the Olive Oil Source, which provides press equipment) says the US has grown in production at the same rate as the rest of the world. “The growth in the past 10 years has been phenomenal,” she adds.
Consumers in America bought 57 million gallons of olive oil in 2005, 76 times what California currently produces. The Golden State is home to 94 percent of the country’s 475 olive oil producers and bottles 750,000 gallons a year. Napa County alone has 73 producers, and like their grape growing neighbors, many have sought to promote their product and create added revenue by giving consumers a close-up look with olive oil tasting tours.
A small group of tasters has gathered in Long Meadow Ranch’s cavernous winery. They stand around a bar. Hospitality Director Lydia Damian tells them to bring the olive oil tasting cups in their hands to their noses. They inhale the Prato Lungo, Long Meadow’s top shelf oil, pressed and bottled, unblended, from a stand of 220 150-year-old trees. The patrons say it smells like grass and apple peel. They sip and suck air through their teeth, frothing the oil in their mouths before swallowing. The group breaks out in coughs. “I feel like I’m gonna die,” says an older woman with gray-white hair—good oil should make you cough.
Damian leads the group into an adjacent room where a huge press is splayed out; its three-ton granite press crushes up to half a ton of olives an hour. A press like this can easily cost half a million dollars, and larger presses soar into the multi-millions. But such a large investment can’t do anything about the yield.
“With such abysmal yields, it is really a labor of love with the producers,” Ainsworth says. The satisfaction of Napa olive oil producers comes from producing top-quality, extra-virgin olive oil.
Labor-intensive production drives the prices up dramatically, limiting consumers. While the US market for olive oil may be huge, Napa’s high-end oils are never used for cooking and only make it into the vinaigrettes and the finishing sauces of the most discerning restaurants.
Head Chef Vincent Natress, at the lavish resort of Meadowood (www.meadowood.com) near the Napa Valley town of St. Helena, loves to use Long Meadow’s Prato Lungo, which retails at $45 a bottle. “There’s not a better oil in the world,” Natress says. “Someone planted those trees 150 years ago in a place that those trees were specifically suited for. Then someone [Long Meadow owner Ted Hall] who was very sensitive to the rarity of those trees bought the property, found the trees and made an olive oil from them. That’s serendipitous. Could you do that from scratch? I don’t think so.”
Until Napa premium olive oil can be about the profit, it’s going to have to be about the taste.
Round Pond makes four different olive oils, blending its Italian and Spanish varietals. They offer tours of the “Lamborghini of olive oil presses,” as one visitor said of their huge Pierlasi mill, imported from Italy. Along with detailed instruction on the machinations of the press, you are escorted to a small tasting room to try Round Pond’s oils and vinegars. Tours run about an hour and cost $20 a person. www.roundpond.com
Along with producing wine, the 600-acre Long Meadow Ranch produces oil from the 220 olive trees that were found when the Hall family began clearing out the land in 1989. That grove, which is over 150 years old, produces 600 500ml bottles of Prato Lungo (Long Meadow in Italian) olive oil. Chefs in Napa consider Prato Lungo “one of the best oils in the world.” Tours, with olive oil and wine tasting, cost $35 a person. www.longmeadowranch.com
McEvoy Ranch near the town of Petaluma is one of the larger independent producers with 18,000 trees. The oil, made with Tuscan varietals, is used for finishing on dishes and in vinaigrettes. Tours cost $20-$25. Book early because they sell out fast. www.mcevoyranch.com
Great Olive Tours, run by Carol Ainsworth, is a good way to get to the micro-producers that dot the Napa Valley. For an hourly fee of $75, Ainsworth leads tours to places like Poplar Hill (www.poplarhilloliveoil.com), a private residence and Mediterranean villa, where owner Rachel Casey tends her grove of 88 trees. www.greatolivetours.com
Dos Colinas, part of Hills Vineyard (www.hillsvineyard.com), produces a very limited amount of oil but has won many awards at international olive oil competitions. The oil is pressed from a grove of 177 Frantoio trees that were planted in the 1890s. From that, the Hills family took cuttings and planted 1000 more trees. To buy a bottle, contact 415-398-0480.
Meadowood, tucked into its own valley just outside of St. Helena, is the place to rest your head, take a dip, get a massage or see how all of the valley’s high quality olive oils are applied to food, at the recently re-opened restaurant. www.meadowood.com
Dean and DeLuca in St. Helena is the perfect place to stop off for some last-minute Napa olive oil before leaving the valley. www.deandeluca.com