Though published a few months ago, the following article from the New York
Times may be of interest.

Best regards,

Kaye Noble

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The New York Times, June 9, 1999

California Olive Oil: Promising, but Pricey

By FLORENCE FABRICANT

As the waiter at Babbo [Babbo is the hot new restaurant of Mario Batali,
Molto Mario of Food TV Network --KN] in New York's Greenwich Village set a
plate of sea bass before us, he offered a little extra olive oil,
crisscrossing the fillets with a thin and aromatic stream of greenish gold.
When I asked what oil this very Italian restaurant was pouring, the waiter
replied, "Our house oil is DaVero, from California."

The incident and the answer are a clear indication of just how far California
olive oils have come in the last 10 years. A few brands not only can stand up
to the best that Italy exports, in the judgment of discerning buyers in the
United States, but also command such dazzling prices that they are best used
as a condiment, like that dainty drizzle over fish.

DaVero Dry Creek Valley, for instance, beat out the competition in a blind
tasting in Italy in 1997. The oil, from Sonoma County, is fruity, robust and
peppery in the Tuscan style, with delightful hints of artichoke sweetness.
Quantities are limited, and a 12.7-ounce bottle is about $22 ($66 a liter).
It is sold mainly in California.

Even the California oils sold in bulk and bottled under private labels for
Fairway and Eli's Manhattan have improved and offer good value for those
reluctant to spend more than $10 on a liter of oil destined for the saute
pan. Fairway's is bold and grassy, as good as many imports in the same price
range. Eli's, a warmer oil, is organic.

But the best California oils are generally like high-end Tuscan estate oils,
for the porcini and truffle set. You'll find them in fancy food shops and
mail order catalogs, but not in supermarkets.

"My oil costs about $70 a gallon to make, before it's bottled," said Ridgely
Evers, a successful Internet entrepreneur, who has invested millions to make
DaVero over the last 11 years and now has 22 acres planted with 4,500 trees.
"And that's not even taking my capital investment and the cost of the land
into account."

Evers, who produces 500 cases a year, said that he would like to charge $30 a
bottle for DaVero but that $20 is all the market will bear. "And remember
that, if someone likes your oil, it's not like wine," he added. "They may buy
a bottle, but they're not going to run out and buy a case."

The wine analogy is apt in other ways, though, not least because many of the
better oils carry winery names. Just as the earliest California wines were
often destined for jugs, the first olive oils were produced in bulk.

Now, many of the oils with the most cachet are being pressed from fruit
varietals, like leccino and frantoio, recently imported from Italy; not from
California's mission, manzanillo, sevillano and ascolano trees. Evers'
sideline is selling Italian olive trees. And like the early stars of the wine
industry, these oils are being made in the European style, with Italian
equipment and, often, Italian advisers.

They are meant to compete at the high end of the market. It has taken the oil
producers far less time than it did winemakers to start charging top dollar.
Whether the prices, like $40 a liter, are justified remains to be seen, but
for now, sales are up 18 percent this year over last.

In fact, it was consumers' appreciation of high-quality extra virgin European
olive oils that gave California producers the opportunity to jump in and try
something better than they had been making for decades. Now, even the olive
trees that have been a fixture of the California landscape for centuries are
earning new respect.

Olive trees were first planted on the West Coast more than 200 years ago by
Spanish missionaries. By the end of the 19th century, farmers took over where
the missions left off, and there was a boom in olive plantings, with much of
the crop pressed for rough-edged oil that was sold to waves of new immigrants
from Italy. (One exception was Sciabica, a company in Modesto in the Central
Valley, which has been making creditable varietal oils since the mid-1930s.)

Over time the industry declined, partly because of competition from cheaper
imports but mainly because of the demand for canned olives, mostly the "ripe
black" kind. More than 95 percent of the olives harvested in California go to
canneries, which are now suffering because of cheaper imports from Morocco
and Spain. As a result, growers have started thinking about oil again.

In the most recent harvest (1998-99), California produced 321,000 gallons of
extra virgin quality oil (a figure for total olive oil production is not
compiled), a mere droplet compared with the 29 million gallons of virgin
olive oil, including extra virgin, imported last year into the United States.
But production is growing.

"There seems to be a fever about olive oil out here now," said Nan McEvoy,
the owner of McEvoy of Marin near Petaluma, which has more than 12,000
Italian trees growing on 112 acres and has been making oil since 1996. "It's
still the beginning, but it's taking off the way wine took off."

The California Olive Oil Council, which was founded in 1992 and now has
nearly 300 members, has a panel of tasters trained by European experts that
has started certifying oils. All are cold-pressed, meaning no heat is used to
extract them, and low-acid extra virgin quality. This year, the number of
oils carrying the council's seal is expected to climb to 50.

Still, even more than with wine, it's a struggle for these oils to find a
toehold in a marketplace awash in imports, many of them first rate and
reasonably priced, like the good Spanish and Greek oils that have been
turning up lately.

"Most of those California oils are collectors' oils, museum oils," said
Steven Jenkins, an owner of Fairway. "There's so much good European oil out
there, no one should have to pay $40 a liter. I carried a wonderful
California oil, Calaveras, and at $15 a liter I couldn't give it away."
Fairway buys a decent California oil in bulk and sells about 175 gallons of
it a week at $8.99 a liter.

Many of the new oils bear the labels of wineries that decided to turn the
trees on their land into cash, including Wente, Charles Krug,
Niebaum-Coppola, Iron Horse, Harrison and B.R. Cohn. Lila Jaeger, an owner of
Jaeger Vineyards, began making oil in the mid-1980s instead of letting the
olives fall to the ground and rot. And today the elegantly fruity oil that
bears her name is among the best.

The Robert Mondavi Winery in Oakville, in the Napa Valley, has started
planting olive trees, about 1,000, on land that isn't suitable for growing
grapes, said Tim Mondavi, the managing director of the winery. Helping this
new enterprise is Frescobaldi, the maker of Laudemio, one of the best Tuscan
oils, and Mondavi's partner in a joint wine venture. It takes five years for
new trees to yield olives suitable for oil.

But the wineries are only part of the olive oil boom. One major operation,
Calio Groves in Berkeley, presses, blends and bottles four labels, including
EVO, Olio Santo and Stutz.

About two and a half years ago, Ed Stolman, who made Dove Bars a national
brand before selling it to M&M/Mars, started the Olive Press
(The Olive Press: Olive Oil Fresh from California) in Glen Ellen, a cooperative patterned after
similar community presses in Europe. The center pressed 500 tons of olives
last year (somewhat less this year because the harvest was not as good) and
makes the oils for Lila Jaeger, Iron Horse and B.R. Cohn, as well as for its
own label. And it produces the organic olive oils sold under the Spectrum
label.

The Olive Press also makes oil for individuals who bring in buckets of olives
harvested from their backyards. Stolman has even started a program of helping
the missions re-establish their olive groves and make oil to sell in their
gift shops.

The Olive Press is one of at least 10 active olive mills in the state.
Visitors to the Olive Press can taste an array of oils and, during the
harvest, which usually begins in late November, can watch the
state-of-the-art Italian press, called a hammermill, crush the olives and
extract the oil in a continuous process.

A few others, including McEvoy and Frantoio in Mill Valley, use a traditional
stone crusher to pulverize the olives before pressing them to release the
oil, and they believe this old-fashioned method is best. It's one of several
controversies.

The biggest debate is whether the traditional table olives like mission can
be used to make first-rate oil, or whether European oil varieties are
necessary. Evers, Ms. McEvoy and others insist not only on Italian oil
olives, but also on a Tuscan style of oil that is grassy, peppery and very
green.

They have yet to carry the day.

"One of the biggest fallacies we have to address is that you need Italian
olives to make oil," said Darrell Corti, an olive oil expert and an owner of
Corti Brothers, a fancy food shop in Sacramento. (This is one of the best
Claifornia stores for buying olive oil. It is the Dean & DeLuca of the West
Coast, but in the older, Italian-American style.--KN) "Our microclimates are
different, and maybe we'd do better with Greek or Spanish olives. We have to
make our oil, not theirs, and there are already some terrific oils being made
from varieties like mission. A lot of this is just marketing."

Marketing put chardonnay on the map and in every glass. Can it put California
olive oil in every salad? "California has to focus on competing with the
better oils," Evers said. "I'll never encourage anyone to go into this, but
I'm thrilled with how far we've come."
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Finding and Using the Newly Pressed Oils

With their top-shelf prices, high-end California olive oils are not for
everyday cooking. Use them when flavor counts. When buying, look for the seal
of the California Olive Oil Council, signifying cold-pressed, extra virgin
quality. If the bottle is vintage-dated, it should be no more than about a
year old. Here is a sampling of oils, with suggested uses.

B. R. COHN Light and floral; seems designed to go well with B. R. Cohn's
champagne vinegar to dress a salad of spring greens. A 16.9-ounce bottle is
$18 plus shipping from the Olive Press, (800) 965-4839.

CALAVERAS Pale green, tasting of apples; makes a nice vinaigrette for cold
potatoes; $7.99 for 16.9 ounces at Fairway, 2127 Broadway (74th Street) and
2328 12th Avenue (132d Street).

DAVERO DRY CREEK VALLEY Delightfully peppery, herbaceous, hinting of mint,
with a sweet finish; excellent on grilled fish or vegetables or to enrich a
soup. A 12.7-ounce bottle is $21.95 plus shipping from Bountiful Basket,
(800) 930-0077.

EVO Fairly viscous and mellow; makes a fine aioli. A 25.4-ounce bottle is
$28.99 at Eli's Manhattan, 1411 Third Avenue (80th Street), and Vinegar
Factory, 431 East 91st Street.

HARRISON NAPA Full-bodied, thick, mild-tasting; can carry rustic flavors like
garlic toast. A 12.7-ounce bottle is $15.99 at Eli's Manhattan and Vinegar
Factory.

LILA JAEGER'S OLIVE OIL Fruitiness comes through, making it good in a
raspberry vinaigrette or with sea scallops. A 12.7-ounce bottle is $24 plus
shipping from the Olive Press, (800) 965-4839.

McEVOY OF MARIN Fresh tasting with a delicate pepperiness; fine with white
beans. An 8.5-ounce bottle is $15 at Dean & DeLuca, 560 Broadway (Prince
Street).

OLIO SANTO Rather bland; for salad dressings and marinades. A 16.9-ounce
bottle is $15 at Williams-Sonoma stores.

OLIVE PRESS MASTER BLEND Warm, with a hint of nuttiness; good for drizzling
over cheeses like mild chèvre or pecorino. A 16.9-ounce bottle is $16 plus
shipping from the Olive Press, (800) 965-4839.

STUTZ CALIFORNIA Slightly greasy and not very flavorful; best used to brush
on foods for grilling. A 25.4-ounce bottle is $14.98 at Zabar's, 80th Street
and Broadway.

WENTE ORO FINO ORGANIC Rich, balanced, slightly sweet; will bring out the
flavor of ripe tomatoes. A 25.4-ounce bottle is $25 plus shipping from Wente
Vineyards, (925) 456-2305, ext. 4.

FLORENCE FABRICANT