Olive Oil Expedition

Last Friday, we went to Chateau Virant where olives and grapes are grown. They also make olive oil and wine at the Chateau. In fact, this is the only place in all of France where both olive oil and wine are made and grown in one location.

CEA took us, and we met up with a former CEA student named Jenna who now works at the chateau. It was a beautiful Friday afternoon without a cloud in the sky. Perfect day for a walk through the olive groves!

The first part of the tour was in the building where they made the olive oil and wine. It was interesting to see all the machines used. Olive oil only takes about an hour to go from olive to oil, whereas wine takes much longer because it has to ferment. Chateau Virant does something interesting in which anyone with homegrown olives can bring their olives (for example a few kilos of olives) to the chateau and they make olive oil from the combined mixture that everyone brings in. Then, you get back an amount of oil corresponding to how many olives you brought!

We also enjoyed both an olive oil tasting and a wine tasting. These olive oils were very tasty. I tried one of them straight on a spoon, and it was a little too spicy for me. I definitely prefer on bread. Caitlin still isn't a fan of wine, but it has definitely grown on me since coming to France. Unfortunately, I still can't describe wine any more accurately than with words like "sweet" and "winey."

After the tour and a brief stop in the gift shop, we went for a scenic walk through the olive groves before catching our bus. It was very pretty. There was also a sign for a rabbit crossing, but it was too far away to get a good picture.

You will notice that this olive tree seems to have three trunks. This is because back in 1957, there was a severe frost during the late spring, causing the temperature to drop some 40 degrees Celsius within a single day. Most of the olive trees lost almost all of there branches and most of their trunks. However, olive trees don't really die, so the French grafted trees together to help them get back to production more quickly. So most old olive groves in Provence have multiple trunks due to this frost.