Rancho Azul y Oro ~ Surviving the Dream

It was announced today by the Yolo County Olive Oil Competition that Rancho Azul y Oro won a Gold Medal for it's Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil and a Best of Class Medal for our Arbequina Blend, Robust Intensity.  AyO was also awarded a Silver Medal for both its Lemon-Infused Olive Oil and its Orange-Infused Olive Oil. The Yolo County Olive Oil Competition is the second largest olive oil competition in the U.S., second only to the L.A. Cunty Fair Wine and Olive Oil Competition.   Discover California's newest gold for yourself, why not try some of our award-winning olive oil?

2016 EVOO Olive harvest began at sunrise on November 5th, 2016 and was our largest harvest.  In order to be certified EVOO, the olives must be picked, sorted, and milled within 24 hours, and then pass a chemical test and then a sensory evaluation in a blind tasting by an expert panel.  Our goal is to get them in and milled within 12 hours. Our olive oil passed its chemical test on November 7th, 2016 and is being prepared to be submitted to the tasting panel for evaluation.  In the meantime, our olio nuovo will be released in the next two weeks, and then the balance of the oil will be allowed to rest and the oil will then be filtered and bottled in January.   This was our largest harvest, and unfortunately, circumstances precluded many family members from participating this year.  Had it not been for the very generous donation of time and effort on the part of our friends, Bing and Karla Seid, we may not have been able to complete this very daunt...

 Our harvest this year was a little like the folk tale about stone soup.  A tired traveler makes small talk with a woman at a farmhouse.  After striking up a convivial conversation, the traveler offers to make stone soup out of virtually nothing but rocks if he was lent a pot.  The stone soup story always ends on a happy note. After bringing in a beautiful crop last autumn, issues beyond our control affected our oil.  The new year brought new blossoms to the trees -- hope springs eternal, and all of that.  Just as soon as that phrase was spoken, one of the only rain storms hit our area and threw in some hail for good measure.  Just in case there were a few blossoms left on the trees, the area suffered hot, dry and sustained high winds for a month or two. Dejected and discouraged, we vowed that we would try again next spring.  We expected nothing from our trees, but as the year wore on and the olives changed from green to black, it became cle...

In the old days (three or four years ago), there were down times at the ranch, such as summer and winter.  It could be said that it was because the plantings were not so mature and required far less work, which is, in part, true.  Experienced farmers, wine grape growers, and vintners probably know better.  Slowly, it is becoming evident that free time was abundant because we did not know we were supposed to be doing certain things on a regular schedule, such as spraying the vines, olives and lavender (yes, even the lavender) for disease and pests, thinning the shoots and fruit early in the season, regularly testing the grapes approaching harvest, performing regular chemical tests on our wine, adjusting the SO2 level, topping the barrels, then adding inert gas, all the while planning yeast choices for harvest, calculating harvest estimates and ordering barrels for the wine, bottles, labels, and corks for the oil and the wine. With all those lesso...

Yes, we're always ready to learn, but 2010 seemed to be a year of an awful lot of lessons. In fact, we just can't seem to let go of 2010, we're still picking olives. Still . . . picking . . . olives. First, they wouldn't ripen. Then, they all started ripening, but the weather wouldn't cooperate in order for us to pick them. Now, they're ripe and we're trying to get them picked, washed, sorted, crushed, maxalated, and pressed, in addition to gearing up for the 2011 things we need to be doing, like pruning the vines, which we did get done last weekend, except for three rows of Zin, which we'll finish with the last olive trees. I had originally estimated seven gallons of oil for the year. However, because I was such a newbie back then (and so much younger), I didn't know we'd lose a gallon or two due to the new mats. And yes, that's one of the valuable lessons -- never get new mats. We will, however, be ending the year with five to s...

In the end, all turned out well at Thanksgiving. Michelle and Brian contributed another table to the barn, so now, we can seat 25 comfortably. Outstanding in the Field, watch out, here we come! In retrospect, though, we probably tried to accomplish too much, though. We prepared the feast for 25 in some of the coldest weather this area has seen in a long, long time, using both ovens, and making many trips back and forth to the barn. We did have a great time trying new wines, enjoying some new recipes, and meeting new friends and catching up with old friends. Stuart just rocked his portion of the feast, the rotisserie turkey and the smoked turkey. This was a time we wanted leftovers galore and there just weren't many. Michelle's parmesan wheel appetizers were wonderful and the grape jelly meatball appetizers were a hit. The numerous desserts were amazing. The next morning, was beautiful and sunny, so bright and early, after feeding the little people, Michelle and I were...

I've been mulling over what can be said about our first experience picking and pressing our olives. One always reads travelogues in which happy people are picking olives on sunny days in the Italian countryside, followed by a crush, and entire towns celebrating with a feast, in order to dip crusty bread in the olio nuovo, browsing from table to table to share every family's personal oil. To begin our saga on a positive note, we learned a lot -- always important. In hindsight, we now know our day was too ambitious. There were only two pickers and two trees, which yielded 40 quarts of olives, which took five hours to pick, bringing us to 4:30-ish in the afternoon, and it was getting dark. The average citizen might have called it a day at that point, gone in, warmed up by the fire with a glass of wine. Of course, we are not your average citizens. We were driven by a belief that we would just crush these olives, and in a few short hours, be sitting at the bar in our processin...