Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Experience Our Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Our Peninsula Providore olive groves are located near the banks of the Tookayerta Creek, in the Currency Creek region on South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula. This region provides the ideal terroir with a suitable Mediterranean climate and fertile, balanced soils to produce the best and most balanced olive trees. When managing olive groves for extra virgin olive oil production, there are many considerations to take into account. Tree variety, and tree spacing, canopy management techniques and climate considerations are some of the most important factors to producing premium extra virgin olive oil.

We have nature working for us here in Currency Creek; all we have to do is add the skills of our oil maker to produce the olive oil that has won awards at the Royal Adelaide Show, the Fleurieu Olive Awards, and the Australian International Olive Awards.

Our passion for making EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) led us to acquire Nangkita Olives in Tooperang to expand our tree varieties in 2019. We now have 8 different varieties; Frantoio, Corregiolla, Manzanillo, Kalamata, Pendolino, Barnea, Leccino, Koroneiki across our two olive groves in South Australia.

What Goes Into Our Extra Virgin Olive Oil in Australia

Because we depend on nature for our quality produce, we also, in turn, take care of the environment and aim to leave it in better condition than we found it. This philosophy allows us to deliver premium quality olive oil, and we ensure that, through our grove management techniques, the soil health stays at an optimum level for production and long-term sustainability.

We analyse our soil to ensure that it contains a balance of nutrients ideal for our olive trees. We take leaf samples regularly to ensure that the trees are balanced, and not missing any key nutrients. We make small batch extra virgin olives oils (EVOO) at harvest time, and then our oil maker blends these small parcels into our key products to ensure that the cold-pressed oils in our product range are consistent, year on year with complex flavours and aromas in every bottle. The flavours stem from the eight tree varieties that we have with over 17 000 trees between our two estates.
By obtaining the Nangkita olive grove in 2019, we expanded our business and production opportunities across different soils, marginally differing climates and different varieties, which means we now bring you more variety of EVOO styles. Our Peninsula Providore Reserve EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) is our most robust olive oil, bringing rich, peppery, rocket like flavours and aromas with reasonable pungency levels. Our core range, Peninsula Providore EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) is a medium style oil with some grassiness, coupled with fruity aromas that is a really popular olive oil, while the Nangkita EVOO( extra virgin olive oil) has a milder taste and is the best baking olive oil, and might be more suitable for some palates.
One of the eight varieties of trees includes the Frantoio olive tree. Stemming from the equally mild climate of Tuscany, the olives have a robust, fruity aftertaste. The Manzanillo olive tree produces black olives perfect for pickled or pressed purposes. This Spanish cultivar is recognisable by the shape of the fruit and the ease with which you can remove the pits.
The better known Kalamata olive trees are hardy as they are wind and drought tolerant and will deliver good quality olives. The olives have a lower oil content and are more suited to being consumed as-is. One of the primary cultivars in Italy is the Leccino olive tree that is very adaptable to different climates and soils and also produces black olives.
The Barnea tree is the perfect tree for manual oil harvesting and delivers some of the best quality extra virgin olive oil in Australia. The olives have a 20 to 23% oil yield of the best quality. Referred to as the universal polliniser, the Pendolino tree is the best polliniser for other olive tree varieties, and its drooping branches make them perfect for manual harvesting.
Our first estate included Correggiola trees that are slow maturing but worth the wait for the quality of oil you get. It is also one of the most attractive trees with grey-green leaves, silver undersides, and cream flowers. Last but not least, the Koroneiki olive tree has Greek origins, and it is considered one of the best varieties in the world. It is suitable for high-density growing and delivers the best fruits for quality Evoo in Australia.

Harvesting and producing Evoo includes milling the olives in a hammer mill and then stirring the olive pulp before finally using centrifuges to separate the solids from the liquids, and the oil from any water present. Al of our Peninsula Providore Extra Virgin Olive Oil is quality checked to ensure that every bottle we deliver is of the same excellent quality we are known for, and is in fact, certified as Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Ever since we purchased our first estate in 2015, we have increased our olive oil production, and we have expanded the reach of where you can now buy our olive oil, including onsite and online directly from our production plant.

Processing of Olives for Olive Oil in South Australia

As with any plant you want to grow strong, olive trees need dedication driven by a passion for this ancient activity of cultivating for consumption and oil production. Harvesting and extracting the oil from the olives wasn’t always as easy as we have it now. Let’s have a look at what goes into olive processing:

Olive oil was initially extracted through the tedious process of compressing the fruit in stone mortars to rupture the tissues, turning it into a paste to express the oil or juice. In the 4th century BC, they moved towards a rotating wheel with an axis, where humans or animals could then turn the wheel to compress the fruit.
The first step, however, is harvesting. You can lay a net under the trees to capture any fruit that falls for easy harvesting, or you can use mechanical equipment to speed up the process. Harvesting takes place from March to July, where green olives are harvested earlier and black olives later. At Peninsula Providore we use a mechanical tree shaker for most of our harvesting.
Next is the washing and the pressing. The olives at Peninsula Providore are washed and then crushed by the hammermill, where the olives are pushed against a metal grid to crush them and start the extraction process.
The kneading process is vital to the quality of Evoo you want to produce. The kneading allows the olive paste to reach the optimal temperature when the natural enzymes are fully active. The temperature is vital because the right natural temperature means that the oil's natural state will remain intact as the olives are cold-pressed.
The pulp is then pumped into the decanter where it is centrifuged and the solids are separated from the liquids, before a final polishing stage where the water and oil are separated.
In other areas, there may or may not be a refining process. Here’s where the word extra virgin comes in. If you see this on a bottle, it means that the oil has not been refined using heat or chemicals, and the oil is in its natural state. This is the only type of olive oil we make, Peninsula Providore Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
Light or pure olive oil means it is refined and of lesser quality, and that heat or chemicals were used to alter its natural state.
The oil is then packaged and sent off to their destinations to be enjoyed by many.

Cultivating olives of the best quality and then producing Evoo is a passion and an art that stems from ancient times and will continue to live on into the future for as long as the need for good quality food and preparation exists. Extra Virgin Olive Oil is a key ingredient in a Mediterranean diet. Always make sure you buy extra virgin olive oil if you are used to only the best and don’t want to compromise on flavour, quality or the health benefits.

How Peninsula Providore Brings You the Best Oil

Olive harvesting and oil production has come a long way to see us selling olive oil online. We bring you the best quality olives, oils and vinegar, and we want you to experience the best quality in the olive groves at our Peninsula Providore estate. Please keep a lookout for our picnics in the grove, which includes a platter and a glass of wine. We also have our pop up farm shop where you can buy olive oil, platters or taste our olive oil or local Precious Little Wines.

Contact us if you want to enter the world of extra virgin olive oil online or experience our groves for yourself and take the time to connect with nature while indulging in good food and wine.