Emilio Dela Cruz might be satisfied milling extra virgin olive oil — and only extra virgin olive oil — for Chacewater Winery & Olive Mill if it weren’t for a customer he met back in 2005.
“He started bringing his olives here,” Dela Cruz recalled. “One day he just showed up with a bin of blood oranges. I said ‘what am I supposed to do with those?’”
What, indeed.
Chacewater’s infused olive oils, one with blood orange and one with Meyer lemon, have been popular ever since. With their fresh citrus aura shimmering over the windswept grassy bite of pressed Mission olives, the products pair nicely with seafood, pasta and even vanilla ice cream.
Yes, ice cream. Staff at the tasting room in Kelseyville showcase the infused oils by drizzling a little of one or the other over a scoop. The creaminess seems to brighten the citric flavors while the earthier notes drift into the background.
Granted, Dela Cruz spends much of his time at Chacewater’s mill tending to Favolosa, Allegra and other olive varietals. To produce true extra virgin oils, a mill master must select high grade fruit and key a wary eye on temperatures during the extraction and bottling process. Heat is the easiest way to ruin olive oil, to turn it into the placid stuff on grocery shelves.
The infused oils make up just a quarter of Chacewater’s varietal options. They are regarded for certified bottles of Tuscan and west coast varietals. Still, Dela Cruz puts a lot of thought into the process.
He selected Mission olives as the backdrop for the fruit’s generally mild temperament. Missions are familiar as table olives and are similar to the most common type along the Mediterranean. They carry just enough bitterness to counter the zest of the citrus.
“Once I tried Sevillano, but that didn’t give me enough bite,” Dela Cruz said, referring to the calmest varietal milled at the Kelseyville site.
Instead of steeping the zest of blood orange or Meyer lemon in pressed oil, Dela Cruz runs the elements through the mill at the same time. The oils from citrus skin fold naturally into the mix, leaving the harsher flavors behind in the messy pomace.
“It let’s the citrus come out,” he observed.
Chacewater is in the middle of this season’s run of infused oils. Dela Cruz presses the fruits in December and January, using a cold milled process. Although he needs a little heat to help extract the oils, any spike toward 80 degrees will destroy the end result.
It’s an exacting round of work, certainly. But the first time Dela Cruz tried it, a decade ago when a customer dumped a crate of oranges in front of the dubious mill master, he realized that method trumped madness.
“It tasted like blood orange,” Dela Cruz said. “That told me that’s the right way to do it.”
Dave Faries can be reached at 900-2016
