Us
I am Adrian Henry, and I moved with my partner, Rachel Williams, to our house here in Umbria in 2007. Having worked for 20 years in London, we had both decided we wanted to try a new challenge and on a visit to the area fell in love with an isolated house on a hill in Trevi in Umbria. Madly we bought the house after that first visit with little thought of access, water, electricity and how we were going to pay for it. However we subsequently restored it and it is now our home.
The house came with an abandoned olive grove which I brought slowly back into order over the first couple of years working with a neighbour to hone my olive skills. The return to working on the land is a return to my family's roots as my grandparents used to grow tomatoes under glass on the small island of Guernsey where I grew up. The pleasure I get from someone adopting an olive tree or trying our olive oil and then purchasing a bottle far outweighs anything I ever felt in my working life in London. I feel privileged to be one of the guardians of the grove and I hope that you enjoy my extra virgin olive oil. Rachel has taken inspiration from the landscape here for her art which you can see at www.rkwilliams.com The Olive grove |
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The Casa Margherita grove sits on a hill called Paterno which overlooks the Valle Umbra which has Perugia at its north eastern tip and Spoleto at its south western. From our hill we have views of nearby Trevi and of Montefalco across the valley. It is situated in the DOP (Denominazione d’Origine Protetta ) region of Colli Assisi - Spoleto. Umbria is the only region in Italy where the entire land area has DOP status for the production of olive oil. This means that you are assured of supreme quality extra virgin olive oil.
Olives live for hundreds sometimes thousands of years and so you are not in any true sense an owner of a grove but merely a custodian for a stage in the life of an olives tree. Our work is none the less done for love and appreciation of a tree that rewards us handsomely.
Below is a quick glimpse at the work undertaken in our olive grove over the course of a year.
Olives live for hundreds sometimes thousands of years and so you are not in any true sense an owner of a grove but merely a custodian for a stage in the life of an olives tree. Our work is none the less done for love and appreciation of a tree that rewards us handsomely.
Below is a quick glimpse at the work undertaken in our olive grove over the course of a year.
January. January can be very cold so little is happening in the grove. Around the end of the month we apply organic fertiliser on the uphill side of the olive trees so that the spring rains wash it down to the roots.
February-April. At the end of February we begin pruning the olives. In principle the desired shape to prune an olive is a “wine glass” where the centre is free of growth. The fruit is encouraged to grow around the outside of the tree - exposing it to more sunlight and making it easier to pick.
May- June. Depending on the weather this is when olives flower. The olive flowers are tiny and are pale cream to yellowy green in colour. They form in clusters on the trees and, in a good year, change the colour of the landscape.
Late spring or early summer is also when we "clean" the land. That is to say the long grass, which has been rocketing skyward all spring, is cut. It’s a watching and waiting game judging when the rain has finished but it is not too blisteringly hot to do the work.
July-August. Any suckering growth, which has been thrown up from the base of the trees, is removed to focus the trees' energies on the fruit, which are by now clearly visible though still green.
September-mid October. We clear the base of the trees in preparation for picking the olives. This is a major or minor job depending on the level of rainfall over summer. The green olives have increased in size are starting to change to a reddish colour before they, ultimately, turn black
End of October – mid November. It’s olive harvest time. The majority of the olives are now black in colour. We start picking around the middle to end of October and continue apace until the last fruit is picked. Large nets are placed under the trees and the fruit is picked by hand. The fruit is gathered in the nets and then transferred into crates. We take the crates in batches to the local olive mill to be cold pressed. As a general rule of thumb the earlier (within reason) the fruit is picked the higher the quality of the oil but the yield is lower. We pick ours earlier rather than later in order to achieve a high quality oil.
December. We celebrate (or commiserate) with our neighbours comparing this year with previous years and then collapse in a heap.
February-April. At the end of February we begin pruning the olives. In principle the desired shape to prune an olive is a “wine glass” where the centre is free of growth. The fruit is encouraged to grow around the outside of the tree - exposing it to more sunlight and making it easier to pick.
May- June. Depending on the weather this is when olives flower. The olive flowers are tiny and are pale cream to yellowy green in colour. They form in clusters on the trees and, in a good year, change the colour of the landscape.
Late spring or early summer is also when we "clean" the land. That is to say the long grass, which has been rocketing skyward all spring, is cut. It’s a watching and waiting game judging when the rain has finished but it is not too blisteringly hot to do the work.
July-August. Any suckering growth, which has been thrown up from the base of the trees, is removed to focus the trees' energies on the fruit, which are by now clearly visible though still green.
September-mid October. We clear the base of the trees in preparation for picking the olives. This is a major or minor job depending on the level of rainfall over summer. The green olives have increased in size are starting to change to a reddish colour before they, ultimately, turn black
End of October – mid November. It’s olive harvest time. The majority of the olives are now black in colour. We start picking around the middle to end of October and continue apace until the last fruit is picked. Large nets are placed under the trees and the fruit is picked by hand. The fruit is gathered in the nets and then transferred into crates. We take the crates in batches to the local olive mill to be cold pressed. As a general rule of thumb the earlier (within reason) the fruit is picked the higher the quality of the oil but the yield is lower. We pick ours earlier rather than later in order to achieve a high quality oil.
December. We celebrate (or commiserate) with our neighbours comparing this year with previous years and then collapse in a heap.
