This year I finally made good on my promise to help my friends Gemma, Paolo, and Viola at Villa Campestri Olive Oil Resort in Mugello. This is a place we often bring clients for Gemma’s wonderful olive oil tasting, for wonderous meals in their restaurant (including a dark warm chocolate cake made with olive oil that is not to be missed!!!), and for the serene and breath-taking views over the Mugello plain, not to mention their generous hospitality.
The Joy of the Olive Harvest
Camaraderie in the open air
November is the time for the olive harvest in Tuscany. On the appointed first day of the harvest I presented myself dressed in multiple layers so I could adjust to the cool early mornings, the sun-filled midday, and the cooling afternoons as the sun disappears behind the hill. My teammates Luca and Bea were already at work, having spread the nets under several trees in the row of trees assigned to us. They had begun stripping olives quickly off the branches. Luca spent a great deal of his time on a ladder or climbing into the trees themselves to reach the top branches that were heavy with fruit. I stuck firmly to the ground and harvested the lower branches, the inside tangles of branches, and up as far as I could reach. Bea, with a little rake that looks like a plastic hand on a pole, reached up above me to strip the branches just beyond my reach. Other teams were working nearby, chattering, singing, generally light-hearted. It is the nature of the work, being outside in the clean air and far from the busy-ness of the modern-day world, that produces the free-spirited atmosphere and camaraderie.
We worked companionably, mostly in silence, occasionally bursting into song. The weather was perfect, sunny, with a light breeze. The olives ranged from still pretty green fruit reluctant to be harvested to dark mature olives that popped off the branches. The cases filled quickly, and we went from one tree to the next, stripping, then gathering the harvested olives, picking out the branches and excess leaves that came flying off the branches in the process, and pouring them into cases before moving on. The cleaning is necessary to do as the cases are filled so that when they are taken to the frantoio (where the olives harvested that day are immediately processed), they require a minimum amount of cleaning as they are fed down into the crusher.
I, unfortunately, was hampered by Covid from re-joining them at Campestri after the first week. I did manage to help friends in my hometown of Barberino di Mugello for a day. Their process is a little different as they only have a few hundred trees, do not have their own mill, and use a powered battering fork to get to the top of the trees. (No ladders!) As you can see, our overseer worked hard with us, luxuriating in the warm fall sun!
It is, wherever you are able to participate, a convivial effort, my very own brand of occupational therapy that I do my best not to miss every year.
All over Tuscany this year the yield is down but the quality of the oil is exceptional. Evviva olio nuovo!!! Hooray for the new olive oil!! And may next year’s harvest be unimpeded by pandemic or any other crisis that threatens one of Tuscany’s most important and iconic products!
If you are interested in participating in the olive harvest, please GET IN TOUCH!!! Although Campestri closes for the season before the harvest begins, I am sure we can figure something out!!! It’s what we do. Well.


