The romance of owning a vineyard is enduring, and thousands of Britons have
scuttled off to Provence in search of their own good life with perks. But
we’re also acquiring a taste for another staple Mediterranean ingredient:
olives. During the harvest in the next couple of months, enthusiastic expats
will be climbing trees, huddling over nets and struggling to fathom the
workings of an olive press — all in an effort to produce their own bottles
of liquid gold.
Among the converts are Rachel Dobson, a writer, and her boyfriend, Michael
Jones, a keen foodie who owns a cheese shop, a fishmonger’s and a butcher’s
in Greenwich, southeast London. The couple go to their holiday home in
Liguria, northern Italy, every November to celebrate the olive harvest. This
time their baby son, Ted, will be there too.
“It is the event of the year,” says Dobson, 36, who bought the
one-bedroom flat in the medieval village of Colletta di Castelbianco for
£145,000 four years ago. “The osteria lays on a big lunch
and the restaurants arrange evening meals where we sit together on big
tables. It’s a fantastic atmosphere and really makes us feel part of the
community.”
The dozen nationalities of holiday-home owners and the 12 permanent residents
of Colletta all pick the olives. “Some of us hike for two miles up the
valley to the press, where the olives are turned into oil,” Dobson says.
“Then we proudly stick labels on the bottles.” Like all novice growers, she
agrees that the hard toil is behind you as soon as you dip that first chunk
of bread into your own freshly pressed home-made oil.
Although it doesn’t produce as much oil as Spain, Italy is the country many of
us think of first when conjuring up images of old stone farmhouses
surrounded by sun-dappled groves. “Every Italian you speak to, from north to
south, will claim to have the best oil,” says Rupert Fawcett, head of Knight
Frank estate agency’s Italian department. “Buyers may not intend to barrel
their own oil, but they will soon realise that they need help from a local
farmer in looking after the trees. It’s the whole lifestyle they are buying
into.”
Charles Weston-Baker, head of the residential department at Savills
International, has a range of European farms and estates on his books that
produce olive oil. Prices typically start at about £1m for a farmhouse in
Umbria or Andalusia. In the south of France, large Provençal farmhouses
surrounded by olive trees are likely to cost at least £3m. “Alternatively,
in most Mediterranean countries, you can buy mature olive trees to plant on
your property, ready to harvest,” he adds.
Statement olive properties don’t come much grander than Les Oliviers, an
Italianate mansion near Grasse, in Provence, on sale for £8.6m with Knight
Frank. It has 1,000 olive trees, some up to 1,000 years old, on historic
terraces that surround the swimming pool, line the driveway and run down the
hillside.
“It’s unusual to find properties with olive groves in this area, and this one
takes its olives seriously,” says Paul Humphreys, head of Knight Frank’s
French desk. He adds that the owner used to export the oil to his celebrated
Los Angeles restaurant, L’Orangerie, before he sold the business to Robert
De Niro’s restaurant chain. Now the income from the oil pays for the
property’s running costs.
“Having an olive grove is part of the Provençal dream, along with the vines,
lavender and boules pitch,” Humphreys says. “And it needn’t be a hassle it
you delegate the running of it.”
Those looking for the Mediterranean climate and a picturesque farmhouse on a
tighter budget should try Portugal. Even on the Algarve, if you don’t mind
undertaking a building project as well as tending the groves, you can buy a
ruin for less than £150,000. Algarve Property Group is selling a tumbledown
pile near Tavira, with five hectares including carob and olive trees, for
£135,000.
Or head inland, to the centre of the country. Two hours’ drive from Lisbon is
Salgueiro da Lomba, a mountain village with a permanent population of five.
One of them is Robert Conway, a retired interior designer, who is selling
nine houses that he is in the process of restoring. Prices range from
£135,000 to £235,000. Each property has blue window frames, valley views —
and olive trees in the garden (see panel, right).
“We all help each other in the village, which includes getting together for
the olive harvest,” says Conway, 72, who left London nine years ago and also
grows figs, pomegranates, chestnuts, prickly pears, melons and passion
fruit. “We lay down the nets, beat the trees, then combine the results to
take to the press.”
For olive aficionados, the choice of where to buy a home may even be dictated
by the taste of the oil, whether it is the almondy manaki, from Greece,
which has the highest number of grove-owning expats; the peppery picual from
Andalusia; the fruity cailletier, from the Alpes-Maritimes, France; northern
Portugal’s earthy arbequina variety; or any of Italy’s vast range of artisan
oils, from robust Ligurian strains to delicate Sicilian flavours.
Yet Michael North, who runs the website Oliveoilclubs.com and advises people
who have bought properties with olive groves and want to know where to
start, warns that the process can be tough. “It’s hard, especially if you’re
learning the ropes in local co-operatives,” he says. “Your oil is only as
good as another person’s worst olives.”
North insists that the quality of oil depends more on how much love and care
you put into it than on the region from which it comes. And one tree will
produce up to seven litres of oil — more than the average person’s annual
consumption — so you don’t need a vast grove to become an amateur oil baron.
Kirsty Robson, 39, and her husband, Shaun, 40, from Stamford, Lincolnshire,
have just eight trees in the grounds of their home in Afrata, western Crete,
but harvest 350kg of olives each year. The couple bought the three-bedroom
house, which was built by Snobby Homes, for £215,000 three years ago, and
now live there permanently with their children, Hannah, 15, and Saul, 7.
While their Greek neighbours use strimmers to flail their olive trees during
the harvest, the Robsons doggedly stick to the traditional method. “We lay
nets on the ground, then use plastic tridents to beat the living daylights
out of the tree, bringing the olives down in a hailstorm,” Kirsty says.
“Shaun does the top, I do the lower branches and the kids sit on the ground,
picking out twigs and leaves before scooping up the olives into a sack.
“Picking our olives is fun for the first hour. Then the kids moan about being
pelted by a perpetual barrage of olives, backache sets in and by the end of
the day the whole family is grumpy.”
They soon cheer up, though. The harvest is taken to a press in nearby
Kolimbari to make about 50 litres of fresh, peppery extra-virgin olive oil.
The factory takes 10% of the yield or pays £2.60 per litre.
“We are left with more than enough oil for two years, until the next good
harvest,” Kirsty says. “It’s a wonderful experience, being completely
accepted in this community. It brings home the important things in life.”
Rachel Dobson’s flat is available to let through ourplaceinitaly.com.
Knight Frank; 020 7861 5120, knightfrank.com. Algarve Property Group; 00 351
289 792785, algarvepropertygroup.com.
Snobby Homes; snobbyhomes.co.uk
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