Hand Harvesting at le Château

Growing between the vineyards and the aromatic scrubland, the olive groves at Château d’Estoublon cover more than 48 hectares within the Valley des Baux appellation, the Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée Vallée des Baux de Provence. Estoublon is one of the rare estates in this Alpilles region which chose to replant its olive trees after the devastating frost in 1956. Thus, the history of Estoublon remains inextricably linked to the history of olives and olive oil production in Provence.

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There are four varieties of olives – Grossane, Salonenque, Béruguette, and Picholine which make up the blends and stand behind the typicity of the olive oils made at Château d’Estoublon. Four varieties of olives which are harvested exclusively by hand, from early November to late December, following a ripeness schedules which varies sharply from one olive to another.

At Estoublon, harvesting by hand is a golden rule. The olive pickers gather the olives using a small rake which they pass through the branches, dropping the olives into the fine nets laid at the base of the tree. The net protects the olive from any contact with the soil, avoiding any damage. Workers sort the olives and rid them of any leaves or twigs, piling them into crates to carry them to the mill.

The Vallée des Baux de Provence AOC requires that the master miller press the olive within three days of the harvest. This avoids any start of the fermentation process. However, the owners at Château d’Estoublon have chosen to go beyond the strict AOC requirements. They have shortened this deadline to 24 hours, for the health condition of the olives is indeed the very best guarantee you can have of the quality of the olive oil.

The olives go onto a conveyor belt where they are washed and rid of any remaining leaves. Then, they are crushed in grinder which crushes the pulp and the pit into a thick paste. This paste is then pressed in a machine with an endless screw. The oil slowly flows out of the paste for approximately 30 minutes. The press juice then goes into a centrifuge which separates the oil from the water contained in the olive. The entire operation lasts no more than one hour.

Extra Virgin olive oil from Château d’Estoublon is the pure juice of the olive fruit, obtained from the first cold press. No chemical products are added, no refining takes place. It is the only oil which can boast of such a production process.

Yet, in terms of quality, the label first cold press is no longer sufficient guarantee, in that today, all the mills now have sufficiently powerful presses to extract all the oil contained in the paste at the very first press. Indeed, the quality criteria for Extra Virgin olive oil are much more subtle than such an all-encompassing label can convey.

That is why the Château d’Estoublon has chosen to implement a very strict set of specifications which enables the olive grower to control the quality of the product from the work in the olive groves up to the bottling stage. Still somewhat cloudy, the new olive oil is immediately brought to the cellars in the Château d’Estoublon, where it resides several months, sheltered from air and light in the special
capped tanks at the château.

Olive oil is a fragile product, sensitive to both heat and light. If stored in poor conditions, it can quickly lose its freshness and its aromas.  The owners of the Château d’Estoublon personally supervise the decanting operations, during which the olive oil settles naturally, and becomes perfectly clear. The bottling steps also take place at the Château, just in time to meet the orders.

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