Making Olive Oil is a year-around process. There are many kinds of olives: some are grown only for eating while others are used solely for pressing into oil. The climate, soil and type of tree determine this. Olive trees live to be about 600 years old and it takes about five to six years before they can bear fruit. Olives are green and turn black in the ripening process. The best olive oil comes from olive that are picked in late autumn from the famous olive groves of Florence, Siena, Pistoia and the surrounding areas.
However in Puglia, an olive-producing region since ancient times,
there is a special way to gathering olives.
Cloths are wrapped around the trees to catch
the olives as they fall. Workers shake the trees or beat the trees
with sticks so that the olives fall into the cloths. Traditionally,
after olives are picked, they are gathered into large sacks and
brought to press. They are then ground to a pulp under large.
