On Thursday early evening, Les Templiers de Provence held a Vernissage at the Brasserie Guillaume on Place Guillaume II in Luxembourg city centre.
Tom Seale (also CEO of European Fund Administrators (EFA) in Luxembourg), has culivated a plot in Provence and started planting olive trees a number of years ago. 2008 saw the first harvest from the then young trees, approximately 600 in number, with a total of 300 litres of olive oil being produced. Now the young trees are larger and more mature, the 2015 harvest resulted in around 4,000 litres of olive oil being produced - in 2014 resulted in 2,850 litres, itself double that of 2013.
The 42% increase has also been down to proper husbandry and management of the trees; Tom Seale acknowledged that one of their advantages compared to other plantations is that they harvest early in the season and transport them to the mill quickly. Full maturity in 4-5 years' time should see the harvest increase to 7-10,000 litres in total.
2014 also saw the first honey harvest from the on-site aviaries; this year 3 of the 10 bee-hives produced honey, with 100kg produced in total. Tom Seale explained that this is an area in which he would like to focus more in the future.
The 2015 crop was harvested over a period of 8 days by a core team of locals. The olives were then packed in plastic boxes before being transported the the nearby mill, approximately 15km from the plantation. There the oil was extracted (milled), with nothing being added, and stored in large thousand-litre stainless steel vats, from which on-site bottling and labelling is done. The oil normally stays in the vats for a couple of weeks prior to bottling.
For further details, including ordering, see www.lestempliersdeprovence.com.
Photo by Geoff Thompson: Tom Seale (on right) with family and friends
