CityMag branches out of the city and visits the Peninsula Providore olive grove to learn about olive growing, sustainability and their plans for the month-long Fleurieu Food Festival.
Mel Hollick has a wine industry background. As she guides CityMag through the Nangkita Olives estate which is home to about 7000 trees, she tells us about her mindset when getting into the olive game.
“So the olive thing came about because it was next door to where we lived,” Mel says.
“My father-in-law bought it, and I was like, you know what, it can’t be that different and I like a challenge.”
It was 2015 when the family bought the olive grove adjoining their Currency Creek hay farm on the banks of Tookayerta Creek.
In 2019 they acquired the Nangkita estate that CityMag visits, which is home to seven varieties of olives including Koroneiki, Pendolino, Barnea, Leccino, and Frantoio.
The trees on this grove are about 25 years oldNine years in and 17,000 trees later it’s safe to say Mel’s getting the hang of it.
“When I studied winemaking, we actually did some olive oil tasting in it and the principles are the same,” she says.
“I treat it like small batch winemaking, so everything is kept in little parcels and then at the end, I go through and blend to three different styles.
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“The style that wins awards and the top-notch, gold medal-winning is a really grassy green, bitter, polyphenolic flavour that not many punters actually enjoy or is more of a niche – that’s my reserve.
“I make my Peninsula Providore which is my core product, which is a bit grassier and a bit greener than my Nangkita which is my milder style, but not so much as the reserve, which is the really rockety peppery sort of stuff.”
As well as selling in their farm shop in Tooperang, Peninsula Providore supplies various venues across SA including Bank Street Social and Prove Patisserie.
The three types of oils, along with dukkah and infusions such as chilli, truffle or garlic oil are available for sale in the farm shop, as well as some city suppliers like Banana Boys Mitcham.“There’s a lot of media at the moment about the shortage of olive oil,” she says.
“Part of that is we are having this massive biennial yielding, so we have one really big year of production and then we have one year of nothing.
“Part of that is because when we’re not harvesting efficiently we’re leaving some fruit on the tree and the tree still thinks it’s pregnant when it comes time to shooting next year and flowering. So, it’s got no energy left to produce anything next year.”
But it’s not all bad.
“In the years where we don’t have much, we get bigger olives and the years where it’s all full production you get smaller olives because each tree has only got access to so many nutrients.”
Olives have personality too“So we are going through all our trees, we’ve got 17,000 so this is a long-term proposition,” Mel says.
“We process all of our olives on site here and we then compost our waste and spread it out across the grove with the prunings. We mulch them into the grove, so we’re trying to be as regenerative as we possibly can and trying to really help improve the soil health.”
Mel talking trees“I think the trees are a bit like people and that some of them are really compliant and they shoot out, they’re perfect and are really happy,” Mel says.
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“Then others are like ‘I’m not going to play that game right now, I’m gonna make you sweat’ so with Mother Nature there is no definite, it’s all a bit of balance and we continue to learn.”
To continue to help the health of the grove, Mel has received a landscape grant to do insect tree planting to enhance good bugs in the area.
“A lot of the olive industry got hit by Olive lace bug last year and unfortunately we had to spray because it can basically decimate the trees,” she says.
“So I’m looking forward to try and do that, planting more flowers, more plants that attract good insects that will then help get rid of the bad insects and things.”
Good things this wayThe equipment in the farm shop/oil factory includes conveyors, leaf-blowers and what Mel describes as a bubble bath for the olives.
Once they’re washed they go through hoppers, through a hammer mill to smash them, and then through a centrifuge which decants and polishes the oil before it naturally settles in the cool room.
Where the magic happens“The plan is to build a farm shop so we’re open, five, seven days a week, and it’s available all the time and we help showcase other people’s produce as well, with cooking classes, all that sort of thing,” Mel says as she pours out wine for us to taste along with our olives.
In a few weeks after our visit, the farm shop will play host to their Plated Providence long lunch as part of the Fleurieu Food Festival.
Local chef Todd Steele will curate a four-course menu on the outdoor grill and showcase the flavours of the region.
“Todd’s coming in cooking, I can’t wait, that’s going to be fabulous,” Mel says.
“We’ll set up in the shop with long tables, four courses, matched wines, just a really beautiful day out.”
The Peninsula Providore farm shop and Nangkita Grove are located at 2250 Bull Creek Rd, Tooperang SA 5255. The farm shop is open on the first weekend of the month, with weekend grove discovery tours available by booking. Visit their website for more information.
Mel’s farm shop selection extends beyond her oil, with Precious Little Wines and other SA producers.