Ert.gr: The secrets of making olive oil!
Alexandros Tokas is responsible for quality at Kyklopas Olive Mill. He recently participated as a speaker at a seminar in Komotini on good practices from harvesting to bottling of extra virgin olive oil, combined with the role of organoleptic evaluation. The seminar was organized by the "New Agriculture for the New Generation" program, supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation with the support of the Rodopi Professional and Industrial Chamber of Commerce.
The Head and Managing Director of the program, Ms Efi Lazaridou and Mr Yiannis Karvelas, who was the instructor of the seminar, also visited Kyklopas Olive Mill.
"It is difficult to find such condensed knowledge and to hear experiences, suggestions and knowledge, from olive grove management right through to bottling," said Mr Tokas who was impressed with everything he saw and heard at the seminar. "It was interesting for an additional reason, apart from the theoretical aspect, as the seminar also included sensory evaluation, which is unfortunately largely not well-known, neither to olive oil producers nor consumers," he stated, and explained how the seminar participants had the opportunity to taste samples and evaluate them by talking with experienced sensory evaluators and thus learn how to distinguish a defective sample from an extra virgin olive oil. "Apart from the chemical analyses of olive oils, there has been an official sensory evaluation made available by the International Olive Council for many years that has to do with the positive or negative characteristics in the aroma, the fruitiness of olive oil and its taste.", explains Mr Tokas, highlighting that it is important to be able to distinguish whether an olive oil produced has a defect, which impacts the taste or aroma, since, while the chemical analyses indicate that it is extra virgin olive oil, because of this defect, it falls in the category of virgin olive oil, according to Community Legislation.
During the seminar, the best practices to be followed all the way until the receipt and storage of olive oil in order to maintain consistency as much as possible throughout the year were discussed. "The producer will have to make an effort to bring the olives as quickly as possible to the olive mill after harvesting," says Mr Tokas, adding how it is important for healthy olives to arrive at the mill, free from entomological, fungal or bacterial infections, such as olive moths or Dacus fruit flies, which are the main enemies of olive cultivation. It is also essential to watch out for fungal infections, such as the repercussion of the Dacus fruit fly, as happened last year when populations were unmanageably large, resulting in a degradation of the final product. "Olive growers should bring as healthy olives as possible to the olive mill. And bring them as quickly as possible. This is difficult and cost-consuming for a grower, but it is preferable to bring the olives to the mill in batches. Ideally, the olives should be brought immediately after being harvested. This has to do with how the olives are stored. For example, plastic bags belong to the past, and plastic crates should be used. The fruit is ventilated, and not squashed. In the bags, the olives "light up" (warms up and goes moldy), as they used the say. There is no way that we can make good olive oil from bad olives. An olive mill cannot ‘better’ a poor quality olive. Olives should arrive fresh and healthy and the olive mill can then retain these characteristics in the oil that is produced.
Kyklopas Olive Mill was visited by the head of the "New Agriculture for the New Generation" program, Ms Efi Lazaridou, as she wanted to meet the people who produce the most award-winning olive oil in the country at a small family business in the far reaches of Evros. "I have the best impressions.” She was taken on a tour of the olive groves and the ancient trees in the area. She was particularly impressed by the fact that there were such a large number of such old olive trees. She was shown how the olive mill operates and had the chance to do some tasting in the bottling facility. She was delighted and impressed by how a family is taking such proper steps in order to produce this result. This is also the secret; it is a marathon attempt to produce an extra virgin olive oil with such good characteristics, especially year after year. You need to deal with climate change. “Experience is invaluable, but it must be married with scientific knowledge to get good results every year.", emphasizes Mr. Tokas, concluding that "to produce an extra virgin olive oil of excellent quality, it must be done properly even starting in the winter, from fertilization and pruning to filtering the oil. It's a chain, and if one of its links breaks and something goes wrong, then everything goes wrong."
Photo: Mr. Alexandros Tokas
Report, text, photos: Maria Nikolaou