Olive oil tasting - olive oil and chocolate ice cream???

Basilippo olive oil hacienda

Friday, November 1, 2019                   Ronda

We left the Parador  t 9 AM and our first stop was at Basilippo, in the Corazon de 

los Alcores region.  Basilippo is a hacienda (local olive oil production estate) that 

bottles about 6000 EVOO liters per year. We were met by Isaac, son in law of Senior 

Juan Morillo, for a tour and a lecture about producing olive oil. He told us that in Spain, haciendas are agricultural estates that produce and process olives into oil. He explained that the olives are harvested sometime between September and December – most typically between late October and November. They just finished their harvest 2 weeks ago. The term EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) means that after the harvest and the processing, the official oil judges come to the estate, taste and evaluate the oil, and allow it be sold as EVOO.  If there are any defects in the taste (wood, metallic, chalk, chemical, etc) it cannot be sold as EVOO, but may be refined into VO or pure olive oil, all a much lower quality.

Olive oil products made at the Basilippo hacienda

Senor Isaac, son-in-law of the hacienda owner, tells us the difference between EVOO and other grades of oil

Beautiful grounds of the hacienda

He showed us how they harvest the olives: when the olives are green, the % of oil 

that can be extracted is about 8%, it rises to about 12% when the olives reach the 

envero stage, which is variegated green, yellow and purple, and the best time to harvest the olives.  When the olives turn dark purple or black, 20% oil can be extracted by weight, but it’s softer and has lost much of the aromatic notes, often tasting very flat. Any of these stages can be classified as EVOO, as long as there are no defects in the tasting.  

He says the best aromatics for the oil are fresh cut grass, tomatoes, sometimes herbs 

like thyme, apples, avocado. Depending on the type of olive and the stage it’s harvested, EVOO always has a peppery aftertaste when it hits your gullet area.  The olives bruise very easily – even in 2 hours they can begin to ferment and cause taste distortions. So the key is to get the fruit to the processing area as rapidly as possible, with minimum of bruising. He says that whacking olives out of trees with long sticks, as has been done since before the first millennium, doesn’t work for EVOO. They use a tree shaker (30 seconds) on a bobcat, with an umbrella spread under the crown of the tree. About 60-70% of the fruit fall from the shaking, and then the workers use an electric comb to obtain the rest of the olives.

Rows and rows of olive trees, all picked in the past week or two

Understanding the relationship between age, color and amount of oil that can be extracted

The envero stage seems to be the ideal time to process the olive fruit

Orange sherbet colored bougainvillea

Processing is always done at temperatures less than 80 degrees, and the centrifuges 

and mashers must be scrupulously cleaned after every batch with high pressure hot water hoses. (It takes 2 hours to clean each time). The oil is “cold pressed” – which means it’s never gone higher than 80 degrees F. The olives are mashed (pulp, peel and pit) with four large stampers that smash them into a mash or pulp. The pulp is then mechanically separated from the oil with a high speed centrifuge (3000 RPM), once horizontally and a second time vertically. The finished oil is stored in steel tanks, under “a blanket of nitrogen gas” to protect it from oxygen exposure.

Isaac says to think of olive oil much like a fruit juice. From the moment it is mechanically extracted, it is degrading – and really only lasts 18 months – 2 years at the very most. He cautions us to always check the “sell by” date on the label, and to not store the oil in those open pour spout bottles, except for very little amounts.

Olive oil tasting with our group

Orange flavored olive oil was our favorite

Chocolate-chocolate chip ice cream with orange flavored olive oil

Products for purchase in their hacienda store

Interesting quotes throughout the hacienda store

We then proceeded to do an oil tasting, using the “official blue glasses” that are used by the grading judges. Since this is my 3^rd time doing oil tasting, I’m feeling pretty comfortable with it and also knew not to take a big slug of oil, as the extreme peppery after taste at the level of the vocal cords can make you quite uncomfortable. The first oil was very peppery & spicy and smelled of tomato and cut grass. The second is infused with orange essence from adding the peels of bitter oranges and tangerines to the storage tanks. We finished with a “treat” of chocolate chip ice cream douse with the orange olive oil – a surprisingly good combination.

We all shopped in the store for bottles to take home – Michael bought the orange flavored oil for the girls and one for us. We walked around a bit, and I found a big ship that looked like a Portuguese caravel – for group parties maybe? On the bus, Elena gave us a little treat – cookies made from olive oil – large (5”), flat, thin and crisp, flavored with anise seeds, made by Ines Rosales (www.inesrosales.com) - now copied by others, but this is the original, and very tasty creation.

Large purple vessel on the grounds of the hacienda -  purpose unknown

Colorful patios and buildings

A tasty local cookie treat from our tour guide Elena - a treat for our bus ride