VILLAS IN GREECE: An Island of Olives

Are you lucky enough to be visiting Zakynthos in November or December? If so, you won’t be able to round a bend in the road without driving over a sea of green nets. Locals wave to you from the side of the road before returning to the task at hand. That task is the olive harvest, and you’ll see it everywhere you go at this time of year – for Zakynthos is an island of olives.

Zakynthos is covered in olive groves.

Types of Olives

There are many different varieties of olives in Greece. They all have a unique flavour, whether they’re eating olives or varieties that are pressed for oil. One of the most common types you’ll see on Zakynthos are Koroneiki olives. These are small fruits, but they grow abundantly. They’re renowned for creating an olive oil that’s rich in both flavour and health benefits. Koroneiki olives are best harvested when young and green, but you’ll often see them ripened to black on the trees too.

Green or black? The colour of olives is usually just an indication of their ripeness.

The Harvest

The olive harvest usually begins towards the end of October and it can continue until the end of January. Throughout this time people collect the olives in different ways depending on how they will be used. The olives you’ll usually see being harvested are the ones that are used to make olive oil. Harvesters spread nets out under trees, then cut down the branches and remove the olives. They either do this by hand or by holding the branch in a machine that shakes the olives loose using plastic blades. Long-handled beaters are also used to dislodge olives from the trees.

Harvesters burn what’s left after the olives have been collected.

It’s only the olives destined to be olive oil that are felled from the trees by beating. If they are table olives, for eating, they stay on the trees for longer – to grow larger. When they are ready, workers carefully hand pick them. They check each one to make sure it’s not damaged. The producer packs the olives in salt for up to forty days.

Packed into sacks, the olives are ready for the press.

The Pressing Process

Once at the olive press, workers empty the sacks of olives into a machine that separates any twigs and leaves that might still be remaining. From there, the oil extraction process begins. They wash the fruit and then spread it out on a conveyer belt. From there, the olives head for the press itself. Machines crush the fruits, then grind them into a paste using millstone. Afterwards, the oil is separated from the paste in what is sometimes known as the ‘cold press’ stage. The oil is filtered into tanks before being bottled.

Washed olives head for the crusher.

There are several olive presses on Zakynthos, and most will happily invite visitors in for a look around. However, for a full tour the best place to visit is our local Olive press –Elies Olive Press. Only a short 10 minute drive from our villas.This is a modern press, but the family has been making some of the finest olive oil on the island for generations. Run now by a brother and sister team you can see how they make the olive oil today, you can take a journey through the history of the olive press in their museum, looking at some of the old machinery. You can taste – and buy – the olive oil, too, including some of the speciality oils , such as those with lemon or garlic.

Vats of olive oil.

Locally grown and pressed olive oil is available everywhere on Zakynthos, from the supermarkets to street stalls, so you don’t need to visit an olive press to try some. Most of the olives on the island are organic. But organic is simply traditional here. Even if the label on your bottle of olive oil doesn’t declare its organic status, you can still be pretty sure that it is!

Asteri Olives

At the Asteri Collection, we have our own olive grove. We harvest our olives in late November and have them pressed into Zakynthos’s distinctive, delicious, organic, extra virgin olive oil. This is freely available at all our villas for our guests to enjoy.