It was one of those typically Texas late September days - already hot at 5:30 a.m. as we left the house and headed down the winding, curvy back roads from Fredericksburg to Wimberley. With the aid of some good strong Mason’s Blend coffee and a couple of Roger’s great egg, bacon and cheese sandwiches, we made it to Bella Vista Ranch a little after 7:00, pumped and ready to pick olives.
My sister, Sandy Wilson, professional photographer extraordinaire, had driven up from Houston to document the 2006 Texas Hill Country Olive Harvest. Off to the orchard went our little volunteer picking crew to climb, strain and fight our way to every last olive in our assigned sections. By that afternoon, with four hundred pounds of olives in the bins and hundreds of photos on the memory cards, we were scratching our fire ant bites, sweaty, dusty and aching. So we called it a day and headed for the local wine bar! But what a fascinating day it was, to be actually picking olives in the Texas Hill Country that would be cold-pressed into pristine extra-virgin oil the next morning! However, we were thankful that we didn’t have to endure the entire harvest and pressing of 1,000 trees, which takes roughly three weeks!
Bella Vista Ranch is the creation of Jack Dougherty, who sought to re-create a working, self-sustaining Tuscan farm here in the Texas Hill Country. 2006 marks the fifth year of harvesting and pressing olives at Bella Vista Ranch. The first crop in 2001 was produced in a pioneering grove of over 1,000 olive trees, primarily Mission and Coratina varieties with Barouni and Pendolino trees planted for pollination. Jack has now added a few Arbaquina olive trees, a popular Spanish variety known for its adaptability to the Hill Country environs. The Doughertys also grow lemon, lime, orange, cherry and almond trees for personal use as well as seasonal vegetables and blackberries – and even pine nut trees! Their Bella Vista Cellars hand-crafts small production country wines from grapes grown locally and fruit grown on the ranch.
The next morning found us eagerly back on the road to Bella Vista Ranch. We didn’t want to miss a minute of the pressing. The olive press is located adjacent to the orchard. Jack uses thoroughly modern Italian processing equipment designed to extract substantial volumes of the highest quality extra-virgin olive oil by using only cold-press methods. We watched as the 400 pounds of olives we had labored to pick were first sifted into a washer tank which also separated any leaves and twigs we had missed (quite a lot) into a separate container while spitting the olives up, up and into the press, which sounded like a freight train as it ground and whirled the olives. Small amounts of water are added to the press, which then spins the ground paste, pits and all, in a centrifuge for about an hour. Then came the magic! Out of one end of the press came the pomace, or olive paste with the added water, which is used as compost on the farm. It looked like slightly lumpy, slightly aged guacamole with the heavenly aroma of olives. From the front of the press came the thin stream of fruity, brilliantly green olive oil which passed through a fine strainer into a stainless steel tank. The oil will be allowed to refine for about thirty days before bottling into the chic, tall, darkly tinted bottles that have become the hallmark of the Dougherty’s First Texas Olive Oil Company.
They call their oil alfresco and it has garnered both fans and accolades in its five year history. In their December, 2005 issue Saveur magazine featured twelve outstanding olive oils that were not from Italy, Spain, Greece or California, the traditional olive-oil producing regions. These twelve oils were from Turkey, Tunisia, Israel, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and, you guessed it, Texas! Saveur said of First Texas Olive Oil Company’s alfresco “Bold, fresh, and fruity, with subtle flavors of melon and banana; made from mission and arbequina olives.” What a coup that was! Texas olive oil standing proud - right there on the pages of one of the country’s most prestigious foodie magazines. The Doughertys were especially anxious for this year’s crop – they were completely sold out of the 2005 pressing.
Bella Vista Ranch offers tours of the facility daily at 10:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. There is a tasting room where you can taste and purchase the alfresco oil and two other really good olive oils which they sell (one made for them in California from olives pressed along with blood orange skins - fabulous!), as well as wines from the Bella Vista Cellars, which include a blackberry wine made from berries grown on the ranch. Great day trip and a must if you’re in the Wimberley area. For more information, visit their website www.bvranch.com, or call (512) 847-6514.
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