Hi All,

I am back again with a question regarding tours of an olive oil plant/factory.

While family is in town we will be heading to Toledo. Looking to do something a little different besides the typical tour of the city (most of the family knows the city anyway) I thought it would be a nice touch to take a tour of an olive grove / olive oil producing factory.

Has anyone done such a tour? Can anyone recommend a place in Toledo? Conversely, can someone recommend a good oil from Toledo? I know Andalucia and Extremadura are really the best places to do such a tour, but we won't have time to get that far.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

I don't know if they do tours, but Marqués de Griñón is an excellent oil and is produced in Toledo (Malpica de Tajo).

Hi Chica!

The name for an olive oil factory in Spanish language is "almazara" or "molino de aceite".
So once again I used google and I found this for you.

Understanding olive oil tour in Mora (Toledo)
Visitor\'s comments from a blog

Valderrama Oil Company in La Pueblanueva (Toledo)

You are lucky, now it is harvest time for the olives. So you will see the factories at real work. It is quite interesting.
Olive oil called the green gold is a healthy product that reduces bad colesterol and is essential for all the Mediterranean cuisines.
Spain is by far the world largest producer of olive oil, twice as Italy, three times more than Greece.
This is a sacred tree for christians and other religions, remember Jesus at the Mount of the Olives, the olive branch brought to Noah by a dove, etc.
The olive trees native from the middle east, were introduced into Spain by the Romans 2000 years ago. During the Roman domination of Spain, olive oil was exported to Italy by ship masively.
The Spanish settlers took the olive trees to America.

i second Marques de Griñon olive oil, very good indeed.

Ok - a stupid question - are olives machine picked or hand picked?

Mostly hand-picked. There are some machines that can help the crop process, but it is mainly:

1. A big round "blanket" is set on the ground under the olve tree.
2. The olive tree is hit, and/or shaked to cause the fall of the olives
3. They are collected from the blanket

There are machines to shake the trunk, and there are machines to help picking the olives up from the ground. But, mostly and in most places, the process is human-powered.

breckenridge,

Torrales explained the process very well but I would add that in some areas like in the provinces of Cuenca and Guadalajara the olives are not picked by hitting the branches with a big stick.
In those places workers carry a big basket tighten with straps around the waist and shoulders, then they pull the small branches with their hands in order to take the olives into the basket. Literally it's like if they were milking the trees. This system don't damage the branches unlike the hitting system.
I did myself this job every winter for a few days when I was younger. I had to help my father to colect the small plantation that he inherited from my grandfather in Southern Cuenca.

colleting methods
pictures of olives on the tree
Collecting with sticks

To make olive oil the olives must be ripe. They are ripe only when they get a black or purple color. This happens betwen september and december depending on the regions.

The majority of the people, even Spanish people, think that green and black olives are different varieties of olives, like white and black grapes. They are wrong, the green olives that we eat for snack are unripe olives collected before they get its final black color.

Hi Everyone! I'm back. I have been trying to get in touch with the almazara that produces Marques de Griñón.

In the meantime I have contacted Valderrama because they also offer guided tours of their almazara.

Any comments on the quality of their oils? I know they are supposed to be very gourmet...but thought I would ask here as well!

Thanks!

Ok, I just found out that the almazara of Marques de Griñón does not offer tours.

I have scheduled a tour for my family at Valderrama (www.valderrama.es) which cost a surprising 2.00€ per person. They will also set up an olive oil tasting at the end of the tour.

Thought I'd share just in case someone else was interested. I will post back once we do the tour!

Thanks to everyone who shared their ideas on this thread!

I've seen the Valderrama website, and they seem to be very modern and innovative in the way the do the crop and all the process from the tree to the bottle. It certainly will be very interesting to do the tour. Please, post your impressions after your visit because it sounds very interesting!

Hi everyone! Wow! Most of the family has left and I have a few minutes to write about our experience.

All I can say is INCREDIBLE. The personnel at VALDERRAMA were wonderful! José Marin, the manager of the almazara, gave us the tour (in Spanish, I translated for the family) and then in the end surprised us with an olive oil tasting in their restaurant that they are just about to open to the public. Not only did we have the chance to sample various oils, but the two chefs also prepared various tapas for us using the oils produced at the almazara. The two chefs had recently arrived in Spain from Argentina via New York and Florida where they had been working in restaurants before being "discovered" by the owner of the almazara. They were able to speak English to my family as was the owner of the almazara who also came out to greet us.

We were the only ones taking the tour (8 adults and 3 children). They usually only accomdate large groups, but I suppose since it was Christmastime the demand was low and they thought "why not" when I called. It was mostly wheelchair accessible (my mom has limited mobility).

What I found most interesting was that they don't bottle/package any oils until they have an order for it. Until then, the oils remain in the huge vats out of direct light. They don't sit on some shelf until storage.

We also discovered that the process for making the olive oil was almost identical to that of making white wine.

Wonderful wonderful experience. I highly recommend this type of tour for someone looking to do something a little different. The almazara is not accessible via public transportation so a rented vehicle would be necessary. It is about 45 minutes outside of Madrid in the province of Toledo.

At the end of the tour, which took about an hour, we had the opportunity to buy oils directly from the almazara. While there wasn't a huge discount in price compared to what you would pay in a store in Madrid (I have only seen this oil in the gourment shop at the Corte Inglés) it is a heck of a lot cheaper than buying it in the USA. (see Amazon.com prices and Latienda.com\'s prices ). We bought the 2-liter box that you see on Latienda's site for 14€.

If you don't have the time to get to the almazara to do the tour, you can get the oil at the Corte Inglés for about the same price.

If you have any specific questions about our experience fire away, I would be more than happy to answer them!