Local olive oil growers strike liquid gold
Santa Cruz Sentinel, June 2, 2004

Types of olive oil

Virgin olive oil. Extra virgin olive oil. Refined olive oil. It’s confusing to a neophyte olive oil taster.

Virgin olive oil means the oil is created without the use of heat or chemicals, Golino says.

Refined olive oil means it was created by heating the olive oil.

Pomace oil means solvents were used to extract all of the oil from the olives and then heat was used to cook off solvents.

But even among the three, there are subcategories.

For instance:

Extra virgin olive oil means the oil has no defects and has a flavor that reflects the fruit.

Virgin olive oil means there may be minor defects and a less fruity taste.

Olive oil is a combination of refined oil and virgin olive oil.

But according to Bruce Golino, who is current present of the California Olive Oil Council, there is a real difference between the kinds of olive oils sold on store shelves — and a problem his group is attempting to address.

Currently, he says, there are no U.S. standards for labeling olive oils.

It means a consumer might not always know what he or she is getting.

So an oil sold in a supermarket may be labeled extra virgin olive oil when it actually may be refined oil with some virgin olive oil in it.

California growers are working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to change that, Golino says.

Meanwhile, the California Olive Oil Council has created a certification program so oil producers who want to join in, can have their product labeled so consumers know it meets stringent standards.

And unlike wine, olive oil isn’t better when it ages, Golino says.

Olive oils should be stored in a cool dark place and used within a year.

Aptos Olive Oil Poised For Success As Popularity Grows
By Peggy Townsend
Sentinel Staff Writer

Back when Grover Cleveland was president, olive trees thrived in Santa Cruz County. There were 200 acres of the trees then, the product of a late-19th century olive-oil fever.

But like the horse-drawn carriage, local olive growing soon died out. For years, only shadows of the industry remained — a stand of olive trees near DeLaveaga Park, a 200-year-old tree in Las Lomas.

Until now.

Today, a 1,500-tree olive orchard shimmers gray-green on a hill above a narrow Aptos valley, the centerpiece of the county’s only large-scale olive oil producers.

Here Chris Banthien watches over rows of Frantoio, Leccino, Pendolino and Ascolano olive trees, and, with her business partner Bruce Golino, harvests and turns the olives into oil.

The pair are at the forefront of the burgeoning olive oil industry in California — including a push to get rid of what U.S. growers believe are misleading labels on some of the commercial olive oil sold today. Last year, the pair turned out 1,500 bottles of the golden oil they call Le Colline di Santa Cruz. They usually sell out of their stock by September, they say.

Three tastes

A visitor can smell Valencia Creek Farm almost before they arrive. The sweet-sharp scent of lavender mixes with the warm smells of olive blossoms. Turn up the long, curving driveway, and it’s like driving into grandma’s kitchen.

Banthien, a petite woman with long blond hair, has been on the land for 16 years and working as a farmer for 17. But it’s only been seven years since Golino showed up on her porch with 10 olive trees and an idea. The owner of Santa Cruz Olive Tree Nursery, the dark-haired, quiet-spoken Golino wanted to start an olive oil business but didn’t have enough of his own land.

Banthien’s 20 acres was home to flowers that she grew and sold at farmers markets, and a crumbling apple orchard that had been planted in 1908. "I think you might have room for these," Golino said and unloaded the trees from his car.

Since her garden was already filled with Mediterranean plants, Banthien guessed olives would probably do well on her land, with its thin topsoil and sandstone base. She planted the trees. Then, she planted more. It turned out the area was prime olive-growing land.

The cooler temperatures of Aptos give olives a longer growing season, which makes for a richer-tasting, more complex fruit, says Golino, who regularly serves as a judge at the Los Angeles County Fair, the largest olive oil competition in the world.

Fruitiness, bitterness and pungency are the flavors a person should taste in an olive oil, says Golino."You want the three components to be balanced," he says. But of the trio of flavors, fruitiness is the most valued. It comes, he says, when olives spend a lot of time on the tree.

Traditional Tuscan

Banthien and Golino stroll into the sloping orchard where the trees manage to look squat and elegant at the same time. They planted a mix of the four varieties — Leccino next to Pendolino next to Frantoio next to Ascolano. The quilt of trees are planted in a traditional Tuscan style and makes for an easier harvest — which they do with pneumatic rakes to avoid bruising the fruit.

But it is the soil and the climate that makes their olive oil different from the rest, Golino says." Forty percent of the flavor is varietal, 40 percent is the time you pick the fruit and 20 percent is soil and climate," Golino says. Olives, he says, are a lot like wine grapes. They have terroir, or a taste of the land on which they grow.

Le Colline di Santa Cruz’s extra virgin olive oil won a best in show award the first year it was entered in the Los Angeles County Fair (Golino did not judge the category) and has won gold medals ever since. It’s why their product sells for between $24 and $27 for a 500 ml bottle — and why people happily buy it.

Hot oils

The olive oil business has had its ups and downs. After the 1880 olive-oil boom, there was a mini-boom in the ’20s, said Golino. But soon, seed oils pushed olive oil to a back burner. By the late ’70s and early ’80s, there was only one California olive oil producer, Golino says. It was the Sciabicca family in Modesto.

But an interest in Mediterranean cuisine put the spotlight back on olive oil. By the ’90s, California farmers were starting to grow olives for olive oil again. There are about 150 producers in California now, Golino says, and the Golden State is the central supplier of the golden oil.

The market is also ripe for expansion. According to Golino, the U.S. consumes 60 million gallons of olive oil a year. U.S. growers only supply 400,000 gallons of that.

On their way

In their business partnership, Banthien is the grower and spokeswoman. Golino is the olive oil expert. So far, business is good. Because of the availability of water, their olive output has doubled every year, according to Golino. The partnership expects to turn out 3,000 gallons of oil from this year’s crop.

Five outlets stock their wares from Shopper’s Corner to Gayle’s Bakery to Bonny Doon Winery. Their olive oil, Banthien says standing in her Sunset-magazine-worthy garden, is great for dipping or dressing vegetables or salad greens. Banthien is out in the orchard every day. She prunes, fertilizes and sprays an organic mixture to kill the olive flies that threaten every olive crop.

It’s hard work, but she hasn’t grown tired of the growing olives. "Look," she says and lifts up a branch where caviar-sized olives nestle in tiny white blooms. "Aren’t they beautiful," she says.

To contact Le Colline di Santa Cruz, call 662-2345 or e-mail to