Love Olive Oil, have a few olive trees of your own but not enough for a pressing, looking for a family activity for Queen’s Birthday weekend? Then this event is for you.
The Central Otago Olive Growers Group (COOG) are holding a Community Processing Day for people who have an olive tree or two in their garden, or just love Extra Virgin Olive Oil. The idea is you pick your own olives and bring them along. Or, don’t have any olive trees? Need to supplement your own olives with a few more? There are growers close to the press who will have trees available for people to pick their own.
All the olives will go into one large “Community Pressing” with the resulting oil a celebration of all that’s great about our region. From the pressing, each group of participants will receive a 250ml bottle on the day of Olio Nuovo, that’s oil straight off the press- there is nothing fresher!
After racking and certification, all participants will receive extra virgin olive oil in proportion to the fruit they have supplied. This oil will be available bottled for participants to collect from the press about 2 months later. We’ll enter the “Community Oil” in the national Olive Oil competition, you never know, Otago may come up with Gold again!
Taste a variety of local olive oils and the oil that Europeans worship- Olio Nuovo! Sound like fun? Grab a picnic, bring the kids and join us for a great day, there’ll be hot soup and rolls, tea, coffee and cake for sale.
When: Sunday 6th June. Fallback day Monday 7th if the weather is bad.
Where: 125 Smiths Way, RD3 Cromwell
What time: 10 am till 2 pm
Cost $20 per family or group
Think about the weather on the day and wrap up warm, wear Safety Glasses (available at Mitre 10), and bring your gardening gloves.
As this is the first time we’ve run this event, we are asking for registrations to help with the organisation.
To register, email the COOG secretary with numbers: jean_morgan@xtra.co.nz