Applied Sensory: Our New Extra Virgin Olive Oil Certifier

We have a new certifier for our olive oil: Applied Sensory. You’ll now notice their seal on our label next to our Certified Organic seal. We relied on their taste panel and chemical lab reports starting in 2024 to assure our customers that our olive oil is of the highest quality.

Applied Sensory’s taste panel has determined that our 2025 Tuscan Blend EVOO has zero sensory defects, is qualified as extra virgin and is of medium robust intensity. The flavor notes of our oil include green olive, green almond, green grass, herbaceous, green banana and artichoke.

For many of our customers, the chemical analysis of oil is important too. Here are the numbers for our 2025 harvest oil.

• Free fatty acid % = 0.09 [CA State Standard: <0.5]

• Peroxide Value = 7 [CA State Standard: <15]

• Absorbance at 232mm = 1.71 [CA Standard: <2.40]

• Total Polyphenols = 542 mg/kg [High polyphenol levels are between 400-550 mg/kg]

Fast Forward to Fall 2025: A Sustainable Farm Project - Ripening Olives - Harvest

Fall at the farm has been busy. First on the list was to get started on our five-year NRCS Conservation Plan activities. This year’s project grant meant planting native oaks in our fallow fields to increase the biodiversity and natural habitat on the farm. We were able to successfully germinate five black oak acorns into robust little plants. The rest of the two dozen oak saplings came from the East Bay Wilds Nursery in Oakland, CA.

As part of our ongoing grant activities we filled in our hedgerow with more sugar bush and coyote bush, so that we can achieve a more robust pollinator habitat along our western border.

As Fall moved quickly toward harvest, we hung yellow sticky traps in the trees to observe any sign of olive fruit fly infestation that if left unchecked, can ruin a whole crop. We managed to keep the flies under control fairly quickly. We were also on a constant look out for yellow jacket nests, trying to eliminate them from the orchard to keep us and the harvest crew safe from serious stings. The photo is of a nest dug up by an animal, perhaps a coyote or a racoon.

Of course part of the observation routine is to keep track of how ripe the olives are getting. We like to see a 60/40 mix of ripe and green fruit. We have to wait until we can taste the oil from the bottle to determine this year’s flavor balance and robustness.

And before we know it, it’s harvest time. We had a wonderful crew of extended family to take on the preparations needed to be ready by harvest day. Macrobins and smaller bins and picking baskets needed to be hosed out; the electric rakes had to be greased and charged; and the nets needed laying out in the orchard. By November 10th all was ready for the arrival of our harvest crew, experienced farm workers who have harvested our olives in past years. Two and a half days of intense work during which our sons drove 16 macro bins of olives to the Chacewater Olive Mill — all before the rains began. Two pickup trucks of oil barrels went off to the co-packer in Fairfield to finish the process.

The Spring Big Valley Small Farms Tour Coming Right Up!

As a lead up to our Spring ‘25 Farm Tour on Saturday, May 17th, we had the pleasure and great fun of participating in the Market Hall Indie Food Fest in Oakland, CA on Saturday, May 10th. We showed off our oil to at least a couple hundred people and had a chance to share olive oil stories with other producers. Next Saturday, May 17th from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm you can visit the farm in Lake County, see our orchard - which is in full bloom - and taste and purchase our ‘24 harvest olive oil.

Certified as an Extra Virgin Olive Oil for Ten Years!

We are celebrating 10 straight years of our olive oil being certified Extra Virgin. Earning the COOC seal means that our oil meets California’s stringent chemical and sensory standards for Extra Virgin olive oil. In fact, the results of our oil’s testing more than exceeded all EVOO requirements. You can be assured that our olive oil is fresh and made from olives grown in California — all on our farm in Lake County.

Flavor descriptors from the taste panel for this year’s oil ranged from green almond and herbaceous to artichoke. Someone else commented, “full-bodied, balanced and flavorful.”

For those interested in our oil’s technical data, free fatty acid measurement equals .05 and total polyphenols measured 557.

New Outlet for Our Oil

Oakland CA fans: you can find our award-winning extra virgin olive oil at the Village Market at Clarewood and Broadway Terrace. The folks there call themselves the biggest little market in town. They are probably the friendliest too. If you are in the area, please stop by.

Success at the Los Angeles International EVOO Competition

Last year at this time, we were confronted by a once-in-a-century snow event and wondered whether the massive amount of broken limbs would mean a big crop loss come November. But as we watched a super bloom emerge in early June, we knew we might be in store for a very large crop instead. As it happened we had an even bigger crop than last year. The oil produced from our orchard again proved to be of the highest quality when we were awarded our fourth gold medal in the 2024 LA International Extra Virgin Olive Oil Competition in February.

Summertime rows of olive-laden trees

Fall Has Arrived at the Farm

September means we have about two more months until harvest time. We have LOTS of olives on the tree. Toward the end of October, we will be keeping one eye on the frost predictions and one eye on the balance of color in the olives. We want to make sure our harvest is completed before a killing frost, while having a mix of ripe fruit with color and green fruit to maximize both oil content and polyphenol levels. Now, at the beginning of September, we only have the green fruit and we don’t yet feel substantial oiliness when we open an olive.

Meanwhile we are looking forward to our Fall Big Valley Small Farms Tour on Saturday, September 9th from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm. Banners will be up and we will be ready with oil to taste and stories to tell about this year in the orchard.

Third time is the charm... Third Gold Medal for Campodonico Olive Farm EVOO

For the last three years we’ve entered the Los Angeles International Olive Oil Competition, we’ve won a gold medal for our robust Tuscan style extra virgin olive oil. With this affirmation we are proud to say that we have a consistently excellent oil from year to year. Even though each year brings a different set of complexities - anything from extra dry years to flooding, a surprise bumper crop and of course, smoky skies from wildfires. This year Nature again took a hand to our orchard, pruning many limbs by covering the trees with a blanket of 7 inches of heavy, wet snow.

And speaking of that bumper crop in 2021, we still have some cases of 2021 oil in stock and it is excellent to use for dressings and cooking. Recently we were inspired to try truffle making and used our extra virgin olive oil in the mix. For those who have asked, here is the recipe.

EVOO Truffles

Makes about 16 small truffles

Ingredients

• 6 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped

• 1/2 cup + 2 TBS heavy cream, brought to just a boil

• 1/2 tsp fleur de sel

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Preparation

Pour hot cream over chopped chocolate and let sit for 5 minutes. Add salt and gently stir until smooth. Add olive oil and stir slowly until oil is incorporated completely. Pour into a shallow container and chill, covered for a few hours or overnight.

Using a melon baller or candy scoop, portion small balls and gently roll in your palms until the truffle is formed. Once all truffles are rolled, roll some in cocoa powder, some in flaked coconut, some in finely chopped pistachio, or garnish with a little fleur de sel.

The Great Snow Storm of Winter 2023

We were absent from the farm when the snow fell heavily on our orchard as most roads into Lake County were closed and the power had been out for days. We didn’t lose any trees, but nature did her own pruning in a very chaotic way. We will bring in a tree crew to carefully prune away the broken branches and drag the lost branches out of the orchard. Long-time Lake County folks are saying they don’t remember such a heavy snow storm here since 1949.

To be a farmer is to be a student forever, for each day brings something new.

Our Orchard Harvest Cycle

Our harvest day began before sun up as the crew drove in, parked their trucks and had a few sips of warm coffee.

Our harvest was smaller than last year’s block buster bumper crop, stretching over just 1 1/2 days. Reasons are varied, but in general olives have on and off years. We are working to improve our pruning in order to preserve outside fruiting branches, fertilizing only as needed, and irrigating strategically to produce a more balanced production from year to year. But we still have a lot to learn! This year we were able to deliver the olives to Chacewater Mill, fifteen minutes away, right after the last olive came off the tree.

Above is the entirety of our first harvest in 2013: 220 pounds versus the 6 tons we picked last year. We harvested late that year, quite oblivious to the possible risk of a killing frost. We were lucky and picked a good mix of ripe and green fruit.

Our orchard on a late November afternoon with Mt. Konocti in the distance

Now that the hectic days of harvest, milling and delivery to the bottler are over - we quickly moved to getting our cover crop seed planted. We use a combination of organic pea and bell bean seed. We prepped the seed bed between the rows of trees by doing a light tilling and dragging the soil smooth afterwards. The day after harvest, Bella Vista’s tractor operator came in and drilled in 600 pounds of seed throughout our 9-acre orchard.

And exactly a month later we spy the first pea sprouts pushing through the soil. More rain is expected soon, so these little seedlings ought to get a boost to flourish over the next six months. Next spring we will do some pruning to thin the inside of the trees. And then we watch for the branches to blossom and so the cycle begins again for the 2023 crop.