Harvest season.

The last month of autumn is when the Mansion’s work reaches a climax. The first days of November with a few raindrops and a sweet chill that heralds the coming of Winter brings the right moment for harvesting the crops from of the olive trees of the Hatzi Mansion.

    
Our finest quality olive oil is made from olives that we do not allow to become too ripe but instead, they are picked prematurely. Under the firm ancient trunks of our trees, from the Koroneiki variety, the nets are laid down in order to pick the fruit by hand only. This is followed by winnowing, in other words sifting so as to remove most of the leaves and branches.
After harvesting them, the olives are collected in sacks made from special jute yarn so that the fruit is aired and they are transported to the oil mill.
There is a widespread sense of joy, anxiety, and hope, while our thoughts bless this effort that occurs every year with only one goal in mind: The use of the finest and most superior quality olive oil on the menu at the Hatzi Mansion.

The oil mill is expecting us from early in the morning.

“Welcome,” they exclaim.“The Hatzi Mansion is welcome”.

Everything is ready. The process that we use exclusively entails cold pressing and grinding the fruit. This method combined with the organic cultivation of the olive trees gives us extra virgin olive oil of superior quality with a distinct aroma and taste.

     
The fruit is washed and cleaned, followed by cold pressing and mixing (malaxation) of the olive paste. The moment we were stoically expecting has arrived.
The aromatic fresh oil runs thick, turbid, with a mysterious greenish-yellow color from the cannula.

What an aroma, what a taste!!!

The workers that have been watching run to test the first oil of the new harvest with hot freshly baked bread.
Such fine raw material gives the perfect excuse to the inspired chefs of the Hatzi Mansion to try out creative approaches to dishes that earn high praise and compliments.

Goodbye …

Until next year Hatzi Mansion.