Morgenster, situated in the heart of the Cape Winelands in Somerset West, was declared the best olive oil and green table olive producer at the 2007 SA Olive Awards, while in the previous year, Morgenster Extra-Virgin Oil was rated the Best Blended in the world by L’Extravergine – the so-called Italian Bible of the best certified quality olive oil in the world.
Giulio Bertrand, the owner of Morgenster, attributes his success to a combination of determination and luck. His beautiful farm, which used to be part of the thriving farm Vergelegen that belonged to the Cape governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel, was converted from a wine farm into a sheep farm about 50 years ago. There weren’t any vineyards or orchards left when Giulio bought it in 1992.
Formerly involved in the textile industry, jokes that he was merely looking for a holiday house with a big garden where he could spend two months a year. However, the farm’s sloping hills leading onto the Helderberg and Hottentots-Holland mountains reminded him of Tuscany – an region renowned for its premium quality wine and olives.
When Prof Giuseppe Fontanazza from the National Research Council of Italy confirmed his instincts about the good terroir, Giulio was sold on turning Morgenster into one of the best olive oil farms in the world.
Terrific olive terroir
So what’s so special about the Morgenster terroir? The mountain slopes have rocky,well-drained, weathered, shale-type soil. Marius Lategan, Morgenster’s cellar master, says that temperatures on the Somerset West side of the Helderberg region are between 4ºC to 5ºC cooler than other farms in the area, as it is situated close to the Atlantic Ocean and enjoys regular visits from the southeaster. Some farmers on the Somerset West side of the Stellenbosch mountains feel the area is so unique that it justifies rezoning into a new independent terroir.
The advantage of stress
Gerrie Duvenage, the olive production manager at Morgenster, says the unique climate and soil render the area perfect for olive oil and Bordeaux-type wine production. Because the trees are extremely stressed due to the low water-holding capacity of the soil, this has a negative impact on yield, resulting in the trees only producing about half (between 4t/ha to 5t/ha) of what trees in more fertile soil would. The advantage, however, is that the stress helps to intensify the flavour of the olives, allowing the olive master to create a truly spectacular final product.
The same applies to wine. Giulio’s next move was to source high-quality olive cultivars. “If you want to produce the best oil, you need the best plant material,” he stresses. “When I arrived in South Africa, there weren’t any good oil cultivars and most producers used a dual-purpose cultivar to produce oil. So I imported 14 different and renowned cultivars from the prime olive-producing areas in the north of Italy.” He’s hesitant to give the names of all the cultivars in his award-winning blend, but admits that it includes Frantoio, Leccino, Coratina, Favolosa and Delicata.
A nursery was established on the farm to propagate cuttings from about 2 000 imported saplings and today the farm has 30 000 oil cultivar trees spanning over 40ha.Giulio would like to make some of these high-quality cultivars available to other producers. “South Africa already has an excellent reputation for fruit production. I believe it’s possible for this country to become one of the world’s best quality olive producers, but to achieve this, producers must ensure they have the right terroir, good advisors and good planting material,” he says.
Morgenster will soon release two new Italian olive oil cultivars – Don Carlo and Giulia. Gerrie is excited about them, as it’s very seldom that new oil cultivars are developed and released into the market. The cultivars have been doing well at Morgenster, combining excellent oil quality with production figures. Giulia will be available in two years’ time, while Don Carlo will be available next year.
“Destressing” table olives
Of the 40ha at Morgenster, table olives cover some 11ha. These trees are planted in the flat areas on the farm that are more shielded from the wind.
The soil is also of a better quality, as table olives should not be stressed if you want to produce a high-quality product.
The cultivars include Kalamata and Nocellara del Belice and production volumes are much the same as for most other traditional orchards.
Orchard management for all the trees, whether for table or oil production, is aimed at reducing stress. Table olive trees are fertigated via a single line dripper, as these trees are on better quality soil, while the oil cultivars receive fertigation through double lines.
Prof Giuseppe has developed the fertigation programme, which is adjusted according to leaf and soil analysis and the growth phase of the trees. Gerrie says that improved orchard management techniques through fertigation and better pruning have significantly helped to reduce alternate bearing on trees.
Even so, the phenomenon is still present, so Morgenster supplies more fertiliser when a heavy crop is expected than during the lighter years. Water is applied for around three hours every day during summer and spring, but is reduced to almost nothing during the rainfall season in winter. Gerrie explains that drippers are preferred to microjets, as the water needs to be released slowly due to the low water-holding capacity of the soil.
“Micros use between 30% to 40% more water than drippers do and so the water would be completely washed away in our circumstances.”
Mulch builds organic matter, enhances the water-holding capacity of the soil and reduces water evaporation. Morgenster initially planted some crops between the rows in the orchards for this purpose, but later decided to use the grass that occurs naturally in the orchards. “A weed is something that you can’t control, so we don’t see the natural plants growing between rows as a threat – we just have to keep them off the bunkies,” Gerrie says.
A mulcher is used to cut and throw these plant residues onto the bunkies. Compost made from all farm waste – from olives to grape skins – is added to the orchards and vineyards to enhance and build soil health and stimulate the soil biology.
The oil cultivars are pruned into single leaders to allow for mechanical harvesting. However, Giulio points out that the trees on the farm are harvested by hand until they are seven years old and some areas are never mechanically harvested because they are not suitable for such harvesting. Another advantage of single leaders is that they allow for more sunlight than open vase trees, so the bottom part of the tree bears fruit more easily,” Gerrie says.
Giulio believes that harvesting time has a huge impact on oil quality – the oil cultivars are therefore only harvested when about half of the fruit has turned colour.
The importance of spacing
Trees are planted at a row spacing of 6x3m or 5x2m, depending on the cultivar. Gerrie says that they don’t use high-density plant spacings as such trees overshadow each other after three or four years and this also has a negative effect on fruit formation.
The Pieralisi oil press used at Morgenster can press 1,8t of olives per hour. This is important, because olives have to be pressed within 24 hours after harvesting for optimum oil quality.The farm produces between 70 000â„“ and 80 000â„“ of oil a year from its own and brought-in olives.
The oil is packaged in imported dark glass bottles to prevent sunlight from damaging it. “We do everything we can to ensure a premium product gets to our consumers, and they are willing to pay the price because they know they are buying guaranteed quality,” Giulio says. He concludes that one will always be assured of a market with a high-quality product.Contact Morgenster on (021) 852 1738 or e-mail [email protected] |fw
