11 minute read
An Oil Consuming Passion
Despite rising costs and a notorious pest, a local olive grower and miller keeps a Fallbrook tradition alive
by Sandra Shrader
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It’s a fierce affection that Guerino Sabatini holds for his olive trees.
For the 81-year-old owner of Sabatini Olive Oil Co., the oil from the fruit of the Olea europaea trees in his Fallbrook grove makes for a healthy and versatile cuisine, whether it’s spread on a fresh piece of flatbread, drizzled over salmon or blended to make lemon olive oil ice cream.
But nearer and dearer to Sabatini’s heart is both his reverence for the olive oil producing tradition that has existed for several thousand years as well as his admiring respect for the longevity of olive trees themselves.
“I bought this 5-acre property in Fallbrook in 2002 because I saw all the beautiful old olive trees on it. Many of them have been here since the 1880s,” said the Italian-born Sabatini, who goes by “Jerry” because, as he said, it is easier for his neighbors and customers to remember than his given name.
“There had been plans to develop the land, but I thought keeping the grove was more important than destroying it to build houses. I started planting more trees right away, and there are about 1,000 olive trees of different varieties here now,” he said.
Sabatini Olive Oil Co., which produces a unique blend of 100% GMO-free extra virgin olive oil – created within four hours from the time the olives are hand harvested – is located at 1008 Big Oak Ranch Road.
The business is a family-run operation, beginning with picking the olives to onsite processing of making the oil to bottling. Their olive oil is available online and a storefront is located in nearby Vista where Sabatini and his family have lived since 1977.
Plans are being made, according to the olive grower’s daughter Linda Sabatini, to begin tours of the grove, including a stop at a 450-year-old oak tree, considered to be the oldest oak tree in Fallbrook, and holding olive oil tasting events at the processing facility.
Sabatini is following in a long history of olive tree growers in Fallbrook although most of the thousand acres of old groves originally established the early 1900s are long gone.
The first olive tree in the region was reported to have been planted in 1876 in Live Oak Canyon, and, as farmers subsequently discovered in Fallbrook’s
first major cash crop industry, olive trees thrived in the moderate Mediterraneanlike climate here in addition to living with minimal irrigation.
“I generally just have to water this grove once a year, usually in July. That’s about it. Olive trees can handle drought situations—they can even be neglected for decades, and still be just fine,” Sabatini said.
The olive tree’s drought tolerance and long-lived resilience is due to its sturdy and extensive root system, and if a tree is damaged or topped, the roots act as its alert and recovery warriors, according to Sabatini.
“The olive tree knows when someone is trying to kill her. The roots of the tree sense it, and they always come back,” he said, pointing out a circular “crownlike” formation of trees around the much larger shorn trunk of a mother tree.
“You can see on my property where some of the trees which were very old have been cut down, but those olive trees’ roots survived and then grew up all around them.”
Sabatini, who only grows and harvests olives to make and sell oil, has several different varietals of olive trees in his grove. They include the most recognized Mission olives , which were named for the first olive trees established in California circa 1795 by Franciscan missionaries at the Spanish Mission San Diego de Alcalá, as well as several Italian varietals from Italy including Frantoio, Leccino, Pendolino and Coratina.
The grove also includes a 3,000-year old varietal from Greece and North Africa called Koroneiki which produces a small olive whose oil has a pleasant peppery flavor. The olive also has a very high level of polyphenols which are the chemical substances found in plants that may reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer. And yield-wise the diminutive Koroneiki olive packs a big punch.
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The grove of olive trees at the Sabatini Olive Oil Co. farm in Fallbrook. Some of the olive trees at the Sabatini farm are up to 150 years old. Sabatini Olive Oil Co. bottles.
Shane Gibson photos
“The Koroneiki olive is the littlest in size of the olives grown here, but it gives us the highest percentage of oil for olive size,” Sabatini said, adding that for every 30 pounds of the grower’s olives which are harvested, the resulting olive oil yield from cold pressing – now actually done by centrifugation – is about 18% on average.
“The olives from Mission olive trees, which are probably the best known olive crop in California, only produce 16%-17% yield for oil. But the little Koroneiki olives produce about 28% yield. They are a very important varietal in our grove,” he said.
Harvest season for olive oil production usually takes place from early September to late November, a period of time when olives can turn from green to green-yellow to just beginning to darken in color. As with all businesses in the agricultural crop industries, Sabatini Olive Oil’s yields and operating costs are affected by a number of factors. The olive trees produce every other year instead of annually, and chicken manure which Sabatini considers the best fertilizer fluctuates in price year to year. And then there is the olive fruit fly. Questions About Medicare?
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Jerry Sabatini, owner of Sabatini Olive Oil Co., checks out his olive tree farm in Fallbrook.
A diminutive and notorious invader only three-sixteenths of an inch in length, Bactrocera oleae is wreaking serious economic damage across California’s table olive and olive oil orchards, including large-scale, super high density, commercial operations, small boutique growers and home owners who want to harvest their own olives for personal use.
The insect, which is considered to be the most devastating olive pest in the Mediterranean region in 2,000 years, was first detected in Los Angeles County in November 1998 and can now be found throughout the state.
Adult female olive flies become active around July and begin laying 10 to 40 eggs per day in the ripening olive fruit, which in turn produces larvae that can infest and destroy the olive flesh. In table olives, the presence of a few larvae can lead to the rejection of an entire crop.
Many industry experts believe some minimal infestation can be tolerated in olive oil production, but the presence of larvae can raise the oil acidity and thereby reduce the quality of the oil.
There are ways to combat the olive fruit fly including clearing away ground debris and fallen olives where the eggs of the olive fly may remain during winter, introducing biological foes such as certain wasps and inserting sterile flies into the olive fly population. Other methods of controlling the infestation are mass trapping using yeast pellets, and insecticide and/or bait spraying which can coat the fruit.
Not in favor of spraying is his trees with insecticide, Sabatini has found an unusual way to prevent the olive fly population from infesting his grove, and it includes using a food that is usually found on pizzas—anchovies!
Studies have shown that olive flies are attracted to ammoniacontaining proteins when they are preparing for egg reproduction. So Sabatini has created his own traps of hanging on his trees plastic jugs drilled with small holes at the top and filled with a wateryammoniate concoction created by the decomposing anchovies. He also uses fish guts for the same results.
“Yes, it stinks like you-know-what for a while, but it’s been working very well here,” he said with a smile and a shrug of his shoulders.
And that innovative thinking and staunch commitment to keeping his trees healthy and his olive oil as pure as possible is why Sabatini spends as much time as he can at his grove.
“I enjoy coming out here and checking on the olive trees,” he said. “For me, it’s about continuing the tradition of olive oil making. I don’t do it just for the money, I do it for love.
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