OLIVE OIL HOBBY BECOMES A GROWING BUSINESS
Angela Cara Pancrazio
The Arizona Republic
January 19, 2006
Cursed and maligned for its messy fruit and the pollen it produces, the olive tree is finding its embrace on acreage in Queen Creek.
On a recent mid-week morning, Rob Holmes of the Queen Creek Olive Mill juggled the art of filling olive oil orders and giving tours to the curious who stopped by the tasting room.
Holmes was minding the store while the owner, Perry Rea, was away. Rea is a Detroit transplant who used to manufacture automotive parts, Holmes said. "He jokes he went from motor oil to olive oil," Holmes said. It took a Midwest transplant to discover how Arizona could be the perfect home for olive trees.
Spanish missionaries first introduced fruit trees and most likely, the olive tree, in the 17th century, said Robert Emanuel, a researcher at the University of Arizona. Olives were important to Spanish culture, he said. Missionaries would load packs on their mules with cuttings and seeds, planting them as they traveled to new places. Many of the trees were established in what became Arizona.
In the 1890s, Robert Forbes, the first director of the University of Arizona's agricultural experiment station, planted olives to test their fortitude in the Sonoran Desert. Those century-old trees make a shady path on the North Mall of the campus and has become known as the "olive walk."
Queen Creek Olive Mill has about 1,000 trees. Its grove is lined with the Spanish mainstays: Manzanillo, Mission and a few Sevillano olive trees and Italian Tuscan varietals. The Sevillano is "the macho male that gets all of them pollinated," Holmes said. Hot days and cool nights in the Valley are particularly kind to the Pendolino, Grappelo, Lucca, Lechino, Frantoio and Baroni from Italy and the Greek Kalamata olive trees. The mill's extra virgin olive oil blends the oil from Italian and Greek with the Mission and Manzanillo.
Harvest begins in mid- to late October and can stretch into early January. Within 24 hours of picking, the mill presses the olives. The stainless-steel machine that smashes the olives and extracts the oil is about the size of a Mini Cooper.
Until last year, pressing the olives was a hobby for Rea. But the bottled oil he gave to friends as gifts every year became popular. They wanted to buy oil from Rea to give to their friends, too.
Now, after Rea presses the olives, the oil is stored in 55-gallon food-grade drums that are oxygen-free until the oil settles and they are blended, bottled and sold at the mill.
Arizona's desert climate encourages rapid growth, Holmes said. Olive trees grown for oil require less water than those grown for canning, so there's a natural bond with the desert environment. "The olive tree wants to suffer to make oil," he said. Arizona doesn't have the natural pests, such as the olive fly, that invade groves in Europe and California, he said. Also absent are mold and olive knots, which are growths that sprout where a tree has been pruned. Still, even though the olive tree is a desert tree, growing and perfecting his olive oil has taken a few years, Rea said.
Rea, 48, began planting trees in Eloy about 10 years ago. He moved those trees to Queen Creek about four years ago. "When you plant something here in the Valley," he said, "it's not automatic that it's going to grow. You've got a lot of heat and cold. There could be a 45-degree differential. It's taken me this long to figure out what trees grow well in the Valley. It's been trial and error. I think I've figured out why some trees grow well here and some don't. But if I told you," Rea joked, "I'd have to kill you."
If you go
What: Queen Creek Olive Mill, 25062 S. Meridian Road, Queen Creek.
When: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday
Details: www.queencreek olivemill.com or (480) 756-6998
Copyright 2006 The Arizona Republic.
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