Olivegrower profile – 2021 AIOA Champion
Michael’s Olives’ owner and namesake Michael Johnston was ‘satisfied and quite proud’ of his 2021 AIOA results, taking Gold and the trophies for both Champion Italian EVOO and Champion Robust EVOO for his Frantoio varietal.
Michael’s Olives prescribes nature’s best medicine Michael Johnston has spent his whole life dispensing medicine. As a pharmacist, that happened behind a chemist’s counter: when he later discovered EVOO, he knew he’d found nature’s best, prescription-free medicine. And at the 2021 Australian International Olive Awards he proved that his is among the best of nature’s best, with the Michael’s Olives Jumble Frantoio winning Gold and the trophies for both Champion Italian EVOO and Champion Robust EVOO. It also earned a judges’ score of 92/100, putting it among the top 10 scoring oils of the 2021 competition.
“From the beginning I had decided to produce varietal oils, copying the winemakers.” Background
Johnston joined the industry a little later in life, near the end of a long career as a pharmacist. Working first in London’s Chelsea district, he returned to Australia and spent the next 20 years in Alice Springs, then had his own business in the Adelaide Hills. It was, he says, “an absolutely wonderful and important time in my life, and I realised the great satisfaction of working in country areas.”
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Which was a good thing, given that he then purchased a 90-acre rural property. “We were looking for country property that was coastal, with rolling hills and sheep. That wasn’t possible in SA, so we settled on the wind-swept Willunga Hill with a fantastic view of the sea, on the Fleurieu Peninsula,” he said. “We thought that we must do something with the land but the property is hilly and steep, and water was a problem, so vines were not an option. Then out of nowhere came olives, suggested as an alternative by Sue Sweeney from PIRSA. At that time it was trendy, so I planted olives.”
Research and planning
Johnston planted the grove in 2000, having first undertaken a dedicated period of research and planning. “It’s on the top of the range, facing north, and divided into two blocks: one has 140 trees, the other 160 trees, with a dam in between,” he said. “I researched suitable varieties via Michael Burr, the olive guru, and chose varieties that would suit the conditions of wind and salty sea air: Koroneiki, as they are particularly suited to the Fleurieu area and produce good oil; also Correggiolo, Manzanillo and Frantoio, and a few Kalamata for pickling. “At this time, Charles Sturt University had a one-year correspondence
