Our olive mill experience

Back in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Kathy and Charley of European Experiences took us for an explanation of an olive mill at Moulin du Calanquet. The mill’s rep, Joseph, explained to us they produce 400 tons of olives in a year, some from their own Calanquet olive groves, some from trees of agriculteurs in the neighborhood. Wind spreads the seeds, so the fierce Mistral wind that people shelter from is an olive grower’s friend.

Joseph showed us a chart of their olive varieties. The same variety can be picked at different times, resulting in green to black colors. Green is youngest.

Too rough a picking process or crushing method results in oxidation, which is bad. Joseph showed us a long-handled tool with flexible tines that they use to not bruise the olives. We dubbed it the olive tickler.

Processing has five or six steps, each further broken down. For example, Étape 2 = le nettoyage, le broyage, and le malaxage. 

We were impressed that the Calanquet company crushes and burns olive pits to fuel the entire plant’s operations. And it processes olive leaves to make a kind of peat moss to naturally fertilize their olive groves.

We were able to taste many of Calanquet's olive-related jams and tapenades.