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Domestic Olive Oil Production and Evaluation.

Kit Lee, Fran Gage & Jim Roberts

Saturday October 27, 2012

A few spaces left, call or email jim@themadrones.com

10:00am- 3:00pm.  We will meet @ Old Chatham Ranch in Yorkville for a ranch tour with lunch, followed up with olive oil tastings and workshop @ The Madrones with Fran Gage.

Attendees will have a first hand experience of a small production olive oil operation as well as instruction by one of the states foremost tasters and judges of domestic olive oil.  The day will begin at the Old Chatham Ranch where Kit Lee will lead a tour and first hand experience of the workings of a ranch producing Olive oil.  After lunch the experience will continue back at The Madrones with author and olive oil aficionado Fran Gage leading a tasting and evaluation course with local and state produced oils.  To finish up, The Madrones owner Jim Roberts will share some of his food preservation techniques in curing olives and storing them.

      

Fran Gage

Fran Gage owned and operated Pâtisserie Française for ten years and in 1995 turned to writing about food. Her food focus took another turn when she signed up for an Olive Oil Sensory Evaluation course given by the University of California Extension Service as part of her research for her first book, Bread and Chocolate.  Five years later she passed the sensory qualification test to become a member of the taste panel for the California Olive Oil Council. She is on the taste panels for the University of California Extension and the UC Davis Olive Oil Center, and  judges olive oil at competitions. Fran resides in San Francisco, but also has a home in Navarro @ the deep end of the valley.

Kit Lee and Old Chatham Ranch

In the spring of 1979, George and Kit Lee purchased this historic property that dates back to 1856. The property begins at Mile Marker 47.19 along Highway 128 at an elevation of 1,200 feet. Old apple orchards, planted in the1890s by the stagecoach road leading to the then village of Hermitage, are now planted with 1,000 olives trees that produce our estate "Old Chatham Ranch” extra virgin olive oil. Climbing the gorgeous ridge past the olive trees, you approach the beautifully renovated historic home at 1,500 feet with spectacular views of the rugged Yorkville Highland forests, hills and pastureland that rise above the headwaters of Dry Creek. 

Cost $125, lunch included