Flinders Island Olives: winds, wombats, wallabies and AIOA Best

Salt-laden winds are balanced by a good climate and rainfall in the coastal Flinders Island grove.

A change is as good as a holiday, they say, and while turning vacation land into an olive grove wasn’t quite as relaxing, for Flinders Island Olives owner Jude Cazaly it’s been similarly rewarding. And in 2020, the process has provided her with the olivegrowing equivalent of the ‘trip of a lifetime’.

Flinders Island Olives’ Organic EVOO was named Best Extra Virgin Olive Oil of Show Boutique Volume at the 2020 Australian International Olive Awards, sending the industry’s highest accolade home to the tiny Bass Strait island. Earning a judges’ score of 91.5, the winning oil also took Gold and the trophies for Reserve Champion Medium EVOO and Champion Tasmanian EVOO.

The company’s Season’s Blend EVOO added another Gold medal for the 1100-tree producer, which is the only commercial grove on Flinders Island.

Jude said she was “bowled over” by the win, particularly in what she describes as “a very different year”.

“We nearly didn’t pick this year,” she said.

“We had a group of WWOOFers set to come and pick but then COVID set in. Flinders Island was in lockdown within Tasmania, so obviously that couldn’t happen,” she said.

“But then a couple of my friends said ‘We need to do something; we can’t travel off the island’, so we all did it. There was a mixture of friends, neighbours and acquaintances, and I hired some other people I didn’t know. We were picking under COVID distancing rules, we washed our hands a lot, did all the right things.

“I lay a good lunch on each day and we usually have a big nosh up at the end but I’m aiming for a really big celebration now, once everything opens up again.”

“It was the slower ripening time that just seemed to develop the flavour.”

Background With her friend and business partner

Cazaly said she planted her grove “because Mary-Anne, Jude planted the grove in 2002. I had the land”, having spent holidays on Following advice from Andrew Burgess of Flinders Island with friends for 40 years. Modern Olives, they planted at 4x7 spacing Contemplating what she’d do if she moved and chose Leccino and Frantoio as the main there permanently, she juggled various niche varietals, along with four others as pollinators industries and personal considerations, and and 10 Kalamata trees for table fruit. olives won out. “We finished on October 28 and the

“I had to think about the type of place it westerlies – aka the roaring forties - blew for was, about my abilities, and how I wanted five weeks. The trees were saying ‘what have to manage the earth and the operation,” you done to us?’ but we had no horticultural she said. background so we were learning as we went,”

“I couldn’t do animals, I would have Jude said. just named them all and kept them, and “We put in 1000 trees but I wanted to olives were just starting to have a little plant more. It was suggested we put in the re-emergence. I checked it all out and they first 1000 and see how we go. That was a seemed the perfect fit for both Flinders Island good idea in retrospect.” and what I could learn to do.”

Issue 118 • December 2020 • Australian & New Zealand Olivegrower & Processor • 17

Flinders Island Olives’ Organic EVOO took Gold and the trophies for Reserve Champion Medium EVOO, Champion Tasmanian EVOO and Best Extra Virgin Olive Oil of Show Boutique Volume at this year’s AIOA, while the Season’s Blend EVOO added another Gold medal to the cache.

Challenges met

The trees did take, despite the wind, and then came the wallabies and wombats.

“The wombats let the wallabies in and they love olive leaves, so we had to learn fencing,” Jude said.

“We’ve now fenced the whole grove with chicken wire and feral wire – electric wire and a footing wire so the wombats don’t dig – so our infrastructure costs are much higher than they could have been.

“The westerlies are still an issue too. They’re salt-laden, which burns the windward side of the trees, so you have the challenge of leaving enough foliage on that side to protect it but still open it up.

“So we planted a row of sheoaks through the middle of the grove and the difference has been dramatic: they just took off, and have provided a windbreak for a big section of the grove that was suffering.

“And the curious thing is that the yield on the windward side of the sheoaks has improved dramatically. They’re almost intermingled - I have to prune the sheoaks to let the olives grow properly - but it’s quite a mutual growth situation there. I don’t know why but that’s my observation.

“They’ve really been the main challenges to date. We have a reasonable climate and an average rainfall of 660mm. We’ve got an irrigation system but I don’t irrigate; I use it for fertigation with fish and seaweed extract.

“And while it’s fair to say the grove has never yielded to optimum, the yields are enough for me to handle.”

Business all-rounder

Jude describes her role in the business as “everything; the complete value-adding experience”, from tending the grove and processing the fruit to marketing her product. She sells mainly locally and her high quality organic EVOO has been embraced by retailers.

“I’ve got a lot of support from the local supermarket and deli, and via word of mouth,” she said.

“I’m also in a chain of independent stores across Tasmania, a couple of providore stores and a big organic store, but there are so many excellent Tassie oils I’ve got stiff competition from my friends.

“I do sell occasionally through the website too, and it was just starting to get a bit of interest, but of course the website went down the day I found out I won Best in Show! “I’d like to expand my market but that’s my poorest skill set at the moment: marketing and promotion is just not my cup of tea.”

Willing student, taught well

Her skill at making great EVOO is pretty obvious, though, and Jude says it comes down to “just doing what I’m told”.

“I’ve been a very willing student and I’ve been taught well,” she said.

“I’ve been to Pablo’s processing courses, I was taught how to press by the machinery people, and I listen to the OliveCare® people. In fact, I translate those practices quite literally. I take care of the fruit, packing it into small crates (partly we can’t lift big ones but also because of oxidation), and I press as soon as I can after picking. I’m also careful about the timing of my picking and everything’s in stainless steel.

“And I do put my hand up for help. If something doesn’t feel right, I’ll ask. It’s a matter of learning as you go, and getting a feel and an understanding of the whole process from go to whoa.”

Slow road to success

Part of that is learning about the characteristics of her own oils, which Jude Coratina conundrum: can you help? While Jude is obviously really good at processing, she said there’s one variety which is causing her some frustration in the press. “I’m having trouble processing my Coratina,” she said. “It’s grown beautifully, it’s tough as, and it’s bountiful, but it doesn’t come through in the extraction process. I send them off to be assessed each year and in 2019 the expectation was 20% - which is amazing for my climate – but I only got about 10%. “I do the processing so I can only blame myself but I’d love to talk it through with people who are processing Coratina successfully.” If you’re one of them, and can help steer Jude on the path to bountiful Coratina extraction, please email her at jcazaly@bigpond.com.

said provides a hint as to why this year’s oil is so good.

“It was the longest ripening period I’ve ever had,” she said.

“The Leccino were looking like they weren’t ever going to go black but I just knew they had oil in them, so we waited. When we did harvest the vapours weren’t as strong as usual and the oil was a deeper green, so maybe all the goodness went into the oil and none escaped this time.

“It’s not that it was riper than normal, it was the slower ripening time that just seemed to develop the flavour. Maybe that’s what gave it that little edge.”

High scores - and long BBDs

Flinders Island Olives has had success before, and was awarded Gold in the 2016 Royal Adelaide Awards with her first show entry, but this year’s AIOA judges’ score of 91.5 was the highest Jude has achieved. It was one of two Gold medal-winning scores

and provided a satisfying outcome to an unusual quality test.

“I put two oils into the Australian International this year: one was the straightdown-the-line organic EVOO - that was the 91.5 - while the Season’s Blend is a mix of last year’s and this year’s oil. I got 86 and a Gold for that one too,” she said.

“As an OliveCare® member I’ve been getting really interested in best before dates and what’s happening there. I’ve been getting my oil tested and it has a threeKeep at it - and write everything down Jude’s big learning curve in her olive business gives her great insight into the trials and tribulations of starting out in the industry. We asked her to share some of the lessons she’s learned so far.

“Just keep at it. As a small producer you have to get used to lead times; that things take a while to come on board. Olives are gentle and slow in that way. It can be frustrating but it’s a fantastic challenge and the end result is just so exciting. “And small processors only get three or four days processing a year at first, so just when you get into the swing of it you stop. You don’t get to practice what you’ve just learned. So you must write down everything you do: your thoughts, what went wrong, what adjustment you made etc, because you need to go back and look at that later. “There’s lot I still want to learn about the processing side of it. The trees know what they’re doing, I’ve got a bit of a way to go.”

“I do put my hand up for help. If something doesn’t feel right, I’ll ask.”

year best before date, according to the calculations. (OliveCare® administrator) Peter MacFarlane said a lot of the Tassie oils have got this longevity, so I wondered what people would think of it and put the it shows that the method of testing has really improved.” Peer reward

Jude said news of the AIOA judges’ Best of Show award “took my breath away”, most importantly because of the industry acknowledgement.

“That you can share your product with people who know what they’re doing, and dual-year oil in. They obviously liked it, and

get that reward and acknowledgement from them, is really extraordinarily satisfying,” she said.

“It’s fact, it’s evidence-based, and it really means something coming from your peers.”

More information: www.flindersislandoil. com

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