Olivegrower profile – 2020 AIOA Best of Show
AIOA success “all about the fruit” An escape from city life is a dream for many people, and for Cape Schanck Olive Estate’s Sui and Stephen Tham it was also the foundation for a multi-award winning business. The Mornington Peninsula producers were one of the ‘big gong’ winners at this year’s Australian International Olive Awards (AIOA), their Picual EVOO taking the Best in Show Commercial Trophy. Awarded an astronomical score of 95/100 by the judges, the gold-medal winner achieved a clean sweep across all eligible trophy categories, also named Champion Spanish Varietal, Best Victorian EVOO, Best Australian EVOO and Best Southern Hemisphere EVOO. Cape Schanck’s Coratina and Leccino varietals were both also awarded Gold at the competition, proving there’s more to their success than just one well-suited varietal. Stephen said they were thrilled with their results, particularly after such a difficult growing season, crediting their success as being “all about the fruit”. “If you haven’t got good fruit, you haven’t got much to work on. We try and let the fruit reflect the environment, and we try not to manipulate the environment too much,” he said.
“As a primary producer you try your best each year and sometimes you just strike gold.” “Obviously doing all the basics right is important: picking at the best time, having control of the processing ourselves; and not using any additives. So I think it’s a reflection of the processes we use and the decisions we make. “But honestly, as a primary producer you try your best each year and sometimes you just strike gold.”
Background
The Thams bought their 50-acre property at Cape Schanck in 2002, however olives weren’t immediately on the radar. “Our initial reason to find a place on the (Mornington) Peninsula was to get our kids out of city life,” Stephen said. “When we found this piece of land it was pretty run down so we started from the
ground up, and the decision to grow olives was really down to the environment. Cape Schanck has a very sandy soil, which is pretty poor quality and doesn’t hold water well. We were also in the middle of a drought. “So whatever we grew needed to be drought tolerant, and also tolerate the salty sea breeze, which really pointed us to olive trees.” The choice of varietals, they say, entailed “a fair bit of homework” along with some smart forward planning. “We have 2000 trees across 20 acres, equally divided into five varieties - Coratina, Leccino, Frantoio, Picual and Picholine. We didn’t have much guidance as to which varieties would do well in the area so Sui had to do a bit of homework: we’d tasted Picholine oils while travelling in France and
The Thams say the decision to grow olives was really down to the environment, and it was undoubtedly a good one.
20 • Australian & New Zealand Olivegrower & Processor • December 2020 • Issue 118
