huile d'olive de Provence AOC en vente directe du producteur au consommateur par le moulin de l'olivette � Manosque

Our shop in Manosque (open hours, map, phone)

2010-08-11 12:16:21

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How to identify a french olive oil

2009-06-26 18:30:48

HOW TO IDENTIFY A FRENCH OLIVE OIL

Olive oil, and moreover « regional » olive oil, is a recognized quality product with a very good image whose increasing notoriety for consumers has made it a product in demand but which often little known. There are nevertheless as many olive oils as wines in the diversity of its tastes and origins.

It is therefore very tempting for the many oil sellers set up in Provence, the main region of production for French olive oil, to benefit from the good image of olive oil from this region. Some are unscrupulous and deliberately remain vague with regards to the provenance of their olive oil.

But thanks to legislation, if he so wishes, the consumer can identify the French origin of an olive oil on the label. The term « origine française » means oil manufactured in France with French olives exclusively.

French provenance of the olive oil will be visible on the label in the mentions:

of an AOC or AOP (for example: AOC de Haute Provence, AOC Provence etc...)

or an appellation indicating the country of origin as a « French product » or « product of France » very often with the corresponding logo.

Where there is no indication of provenance on the label which must not be mistaken for the company name, it is highly probable that the oil being sold is an imported oil

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Our guarantees

2009-06-15 10:00:16

We have been making all our olive oils ourselves since 1928 following the single cold extraction process from olives selected from our producers who are all set up in our territory of Haute Provence in the commune of Manosque and neighbouring villages.

Our AOC olive oils meet the criteria of the Appellations d'Origine Contrôlée Provence or Haute Provence according to the case. Origine Traçabilité Contrôle (OTC) is the external inspection body in charge of checking whether we meet the specifications of these AOC.

Our organic olive oil is AB certified by Qualité France.

Packaging: All our olive oils are sold in metal cans in order to keep them from the light. This also reduces the risk of breakage during transport.

Preservation: olive oil should be kept from air and light. It is best used within 18 months of packing.

The Moulin de l'Olivette olive oil making technique

2009-06-15 09:28:21

The Moulin de l’Olivette olive oil making technique :

All our oils are made following the age-old technique of single cold pressing. This official term means that the oil is obtained mechanically from the olives in one pressing with no chemical processes. To obtain olive oil by crushing is making a fruit juice in the same way you make yourself an orange juice...with one subtle difference in its preservation: no bacteria develop on olive oil. Therefore pasteurisation or preservatives are not necessary contrary to a vast majority of processed products.

The natural product obtained is made in entirely rustproof equipment. Stainless steel is an ideal material for food as it does not leave a taste and is easy to clean.

We can give you our olive oil as a real fruit juice, just as Nature put it into the olive!

The olive oils of the Moulin de l'Olivette

2009-06-12 16:22:00

* Their similarities:

All our olive oils are extracted in our mill by a single cold pressing and come exclusively from the olive-groves of our producers who are all located on the hills of Haute Provence in a 30 km radius around Manosque.

They are therefore all from the same locality with a dominant variety of olives which is always more or less present in our oils: the Aglandau variety.

All our oils are Extra Virgin. The olives are crushed as soon as they are picked in order to give the lowest possible rate of acidity (between 0.2 and 0.4 on average even though Extra Virgin classification allows rates up to 0.8!) and the highest possible presence of phenolic compounds. These are the anti-oxidants which are naturally present in olive oil and help to preserve it.

The high anti-oxidant content and the dominance of the Aglandau variety give our oil a sharpness and bitterness to be found in varying degrees in our oils. These 2 features play the role of amplifying the fruity aroma of our oil in its normal use for accompanying dishes.

The "fresh" fruit flavour obtained is sometimes called green fruity aroma for oils at the beginning of the harvesting season or ripe fruity aroma for olives harvested at the end of the season. The aromas of our oils are all in vegetal tones where the main tastes are raw artichokes, tomato leaves, green apples, etc.

* Their differences:

The intensity of the fruity aroma varies according to the criteria of our different denominations:

- A median fruity aroma for our olive oil classified as "oil from France" or "organic oil from France": These oils which are not AOC allow the oil-presser to assemble olives of different varieties and ripeness.

- An intense fruity aroma for our oil classified as AOC Provence: The specifications of this Appellation stipulate an assembly of a minimum of 2 of the following varieties: Aglandau, Bouteillan, Salonenque and Cayon.

- An intense fruity aroma for our oil classified as AOC Haute Provence: The specifications of this Appellation stipulate a minimum of 80% of this variety in the oil produced. This is therefore a practically monovalent oil.

The growing region of Moulin de l'Olivette

2009-06-11 18:05:10

The olive-groves of the producers who bring their olives to Moulin de l'Olivette are all grown in a 30 km radius around Manosque. This locality is the territory of the AOC olive oil from Haute Provence which stretches from the Luberon to the Gorges du Verdon along the Durance river.

Olive trees in this region are to be found on the hills and plateaux. The tree of peace needs a Mediterranean climate and our relatively cold winters are fatal to the olive fruit fly. Therefore olive-growing has few requirements here and the olive tree is very hardy. The producers cultivate their trees most of the time with no treatment and when they have to in supervised control. The largest part of the olive-growers’ (olive producers) task is working the soil and the yearly or twice-yearly pruning of the olive-trees.

A few AB approved (Organic Farming) producers cultivate their olive trees within the framework of Organic Farming.

The dominant variety of olives in our region is made up mainly of the Aglandau. This olive has the particularity of remaining green for a long time. It darkens on ripening with colours ranging from mauve to purple. It rarely turns black.

It gives all the oils we produce a palette of tastes which are essentially vegetal with aromas of raw artichoke, freshly mown grass and even violets. The sharpness and bitterness are present in varying degrees.

History of the Moulin de l'Olivette

2009-06-11 16:58:56

History of the moulin de l’olivette :

The Moulin de l'olivette was created in 1928 in the form of a farmers’ cooperative by producers who needed to control the way their olive oil was made. Its chairman and founder was Ernest DEVAUX. Located in Manosque, a commune right in the middle of Haute Provence, which at the time had the largest number of olive trees in the department of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, this olive-oil mill was to accompany and fuel the history, development and modernization of local olive oil throughout the 20th century. It also suffered from the ups and downs of olives and olive oil, but thanks to the experience acquired by the successive generations of producers and oil-pressers, it overcame various ordeals and in particularly the 2 frosts of 1929 and 1956 which practically wiped out all the French olive orchard.

Then it succeeded in getting through the dark years of olive oil after the frost of 1956, thanks to the passion of the self-consuming olive-growers more attached to their olive-trees and their region than to profitability of olive-growing, which was at the time practically non-existent,. There was actually a period in which olive oil, then a far cry from today’s consumer image, had to give way to seed oils which took over the oil market and won the hearts of the French.

The Second World War was also to tragically mark the history of the Coopérative Oléicole de Manosque. Following the storage of gunpowder by the resistance during the last war, the building exploded in 1944 causing the deaths of 4 young people but miraculously sparing the life of the manageress of the time.

The present building was therefore rebuilt in 1952. A modern mill and a model for its time, it was built along lines of hygiene and space which had, up until then, been unknown to olive-pressers.

Since the middle of the 80s, the olive tree and olive oil have known a new lease of life, thanks mainly to the advice of French medical experts on olive oil. The Moulin de l'olivette, by the dynamism it has aroused in the olive-growers of Haute Provence, is now one of the most famous olive mills in France and its production is steadily increasing.