A very large campaign in terms of olive tonnage for limited oil yields. While the harvest is in full swing at the Château de Taurenne, in Aups, Yann Fernandez casts a skeptical eye over the olives “sips of water” that he will reap “at the turn“, when the green fruits take on a purplish-red color, to obtain “a fruity taste that is neither too green nor too ripe”.
This qualitative requirement forms the framework of the seven Taurenne oils, from the softest (matured olive) to the most ardent (green fruity). Nectars that have won numerous awards since the entry into production of this orchard of 11,000 olive trees planted between 2000 and April 2017, over 38 hectares. Madness, due to private investors “who wanted to restore the nobility of a thousand-year-old history”explains Yann Fernandez.
But in Aups, as in the 142 communes of the Var which produce olive oil, we abstain from any forecast on yields: the autumn rains have gorged the fruits, some berries are the size of a plum. “As long as the oil has not entered the tanks, I will not put a ticket on it,” says Yann Fernandez.
Yo-yo effects on crops
On the early coast where the 2023-2024 campaign is ending, as in the late sectors of central Var where it will stretch until mid-January, the capricious climatology has come, once again this year, to hamper a once well-oiled mechanism . “There was too much rain during lipogenesis, a biological process which allows the olive to transform part of its water into fatty acids. The oil is indeed in the fruit, but the weight ratio of the olives/oil is unbalanced, returns will be very low”estimates Olivier Roux, president of the AOP oil de Provence union. At the Haut Jasson mill, in La Londe-les-Maures, he should collect 50 tonnes for a production of 4,500 liters. Yields far below the usual ratio of 20% of oil contained in the flesh, obtained using an extraction process unchanged since Antiquity: crushing and kneading to transform the olives into paste, pressing, until the separation of oil and water by decantation or centrifugation.
Pay attention to quality!
“Concern about yields will have repercussions: in the upper Var, after a dynamic start to the campaign, the harvest is slow, some producers preferred to wait for the cold so that the olives lose a little water, this is not the case. is not necessarily a good idea.comments Olivier Roux. The president calls for a middle ground: “When a fruit is too ripe, it loses its aromatic intensity. It is better to focus on the organoleptic quality, rather than looking for yields.”
The impact will also be economic with higher processing costs for olive growers: at the mill, invoicing is based on the kilo of olives brought in, not on the finished product.
If the harvest therefore promises to be smaller, production costs remain high in the traditional Var orchard. At the Château de Taurenne, the harvest, although mechanized, employs “6 employees for 4 to 6 tonnes of olives harvested per day “, indicates Yann Fernandez, hard at work with his teams. Every morning, the nets are stretched on the ground, moved by two workers to the slow rhythm of the advance of the tractor equipped with a trunk vibrator.
“It makes the olives twist to the right then to the left, it is this repeated oscillation, 8 seconds in one direction then the other, which will detach the fruits from their peduncle”he explains. To avoid leaving any olives on the tree, two workers finish the harvest with an electric comb, followed by two “ironers” who will do the same gesture, by hand. Between tradition and modernity, the Château de Taurenne took a leap in innovation with the installation, in 2015, of a continuous chain.
Ten years later, it is running at full capacity and receives harvests from individuals, to amortize the investment.
Considerable costs to maintain millenary production and produce AOP de Provence oil, fortunately popular with consumers.
12.000
This is the number of hectares of olive trees recorded in the Var in 2005. That is to say a decline of 80% in two centuries, after the prosperous years of 1820, when 50,000 hectares were counted in the department.
