Keith and Helen’s olive oil wins top prize!

We woke up to the news that our friends’ organic Tuscan olive oil won First Prize last night at the local Tuscan competition!

Complimenti, Keith and Helen!

Here’s their website for Boggioli, pictured below–1100 olive trees on a hillside in the Valdarno south of Florence: http://www.boggioli.com/

The judges got it right–the oil we brought back last week is exceptional.

We arrived at Boggioli this year, as last, in a rainstorm that disrupted the olive picking process.

Our usual contribution to the work–gathering the olives into the plastic paniers and pulling out any twigs and small branches that have fallen in–was minimal–limited this year to one afternoon.

The torrential rain had made it impossible for the five-man team of professional pickers to work. This left Keith with a problem: He had booked a visit to the frantoio (oil processing plant) but only had a small quantity of olives waiting to be transported from the previous day’s limited picking.

Olives begin to degrade fast and waiting more than two days might affect the overall quality of this year’s yield. So to make up the quantity a little, Keith, Helen, Meredith and I picked some trees nearest to the house where the ground is flat and relatively dry.

Pas grand choses but it was fun and made more sense of the next morning’s trip to the frantoio.