Olivegrower profile – 2021 AIOA Champion
Rochford Hall owners Paul, Chris and Richard Lovell with their double Champion award-winning Koroneiki EVOO.
Rochford Hall Champions Tasmanian quality Rochford Hall owners Chris and Paul Lovell are rightly proud of the quality of Tasmanian produce, recognised as among the world’s best. Which is why they’re even more proud to have been awarded the trophy for Best Tasmanian Extra Virgin Olive Oil at the 2021 Australian International Olive Awards (AIOA). The trophy was one of two Champion awards for Rochford Hall’s Koroneiki, which also took the class trophy for Champion Medium Extra Virgin Olive Oil from a field of 84 medal-winners. The monovarietal received a judges’ score of 94/100, achieving the thirdhighest point score across all classes of the EVOO Competition.
Background
Like many boutique olive growers, the Lovells came to olives from very different backgrounds. Paul ran the family’s food wholesaling business, while Chris was a registered nurse specialising in perioperative and anaesthetic care. The business was sold and Paul now manages the Rochford Hall property along with other business commitments, while Chris still nurses on a casual basis. Chris said they bought their six acre property at Kellevie, in southeastern Tasmania, in 2003 “as a hobby”. It was just land with a little cottage, so there were some big decisions to make as to its future. “We had no idea what we were going to do with it but Tasmania is known for its wines, so we thought vines perhaps? We looked at a few options,” she said. “Paul did some research and found an olive grove in the region which was really good, so we eventually decided to go with olives. It seemed like they’d do well and they’re good-looking trees, so we knew they’d lift the property visually. And we weren’t really olives and EVOO people but as we learned more about EVOO goodness, we knew it was a great idea. “We were able to get the trees from the other grove owner, who
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advised on varieties which would suit the soil and for EVOO not table olives, and we planted the front grove of 240 trees in 2007. They’re mainly Koroneiki, plus some Frantoio and Arbequina as pollinators. “Planting of the back grove followed in 2012, mainly Picual with Picholine and Arbequina pollinators, but the Picual grew too large and we eventually had to take every second tree of that grove out. So our original 500 trees is now a more manageable 325 trees.”
Early success
In 2013 the Lovells had the second “proper” harvest from their front grove, producing 48 litres of Koroneiki EVOO. They entered it into the Tasmanian Royal Agricultural Show (RAS) and won Gold - plus Champion Oil of Show. Pretty good for their first competition entry! The 2015 harvest was another good one and they entered both of their oils into the RAS, gaining the competition’s top scores of 95 and 96 respectively. They also entered that year’s AOA-run national competition, where the Koroneiki won the trophies for Champion Delicate EVOO and Best Tasmania EVOO. The biennial award run continued in 2017, this time with the Picual taking Champion Oil of the RAS Fine Food Awards, only faltering with the very low 2019 harvest when they “didn’t have enough to enter anything”.
2020 clean-up
The 2020 harvest was another disappointingly small yield, Chris said, prompting some big work in the grove. “The winds wiped out pollination and we had very little rain, so there was hardly any fruit,” she said. “So that June we removed every second tree in the back Picual grove, to allow sun in and clean up soot on the trunks. They’d just gotten too big and the lack of sunshine and airflow was affecting
