🍃 The Olive Oil Pantry and La Olivina

I am finishing up a week fighting giants, and since I brought my favorite olive oils on this adventure, I managed to finish four bottles. To be fair, three of them were almost empty, and one was rather small. 

I would call it a triumphant week! I did climb up to about 1500 feet of elevation to see the Don Quixote giants. There was quite a bit of wind too. It was hard to take pictures without my bike toppling onto me.

I also prevailed over a few less tangible giants related to quantum computing and user-space Kubernetes. I do believe the hills were much harder. You might notice that the grass is "golden" and I want to quickly share why that is. If you visit this area around March, you will see hills that make you feel as if you are in a Windows screensaver. Here is a view of that from February 1st of this year.

As the seasons change and the rain subsides, the predominant grass species dies, and we are left with our golden hills. The interesting part of the story is that the native grasses were overtaken by a species from Europe. These native types have deeper roots, and can survive the harsh droughts. Another interesting note is with respect to serpentine soil that is toxic to some plants. If you see a quick change in the vegetation, likely it is due to a patch of this rock.

The Olive Oil Pantry

Our story starts at the Olive Oil Pantry, a small shop in downtown Livermore that (I hear) almost closed during the pandemic, but managed to survive. It was opened in June of 2015, and is the second pantry and tasting room of its type. Akin to the store in Chicago, the oil is stored in fustis, which are stainless steel, silver tanks to hold and dispense the oil through spigots. There are two kinds - one that is made from folded metal, and the other seamless. As you might guess, seamless is more expensive (harder to produce) but is easier to clean, and less likely to get residue trapped in cracks. Fusti is an Italian word, and the plural of fusto, which refers to drums, barrels or kegs. The singular form can refer to a plant stem, tree trunk, or a hunk. That last one makes me think of a handsome man, and a stud detector for detecting beams in the wall. Or maybe one could walk around and hold it up to a man's chest, push the button, hear the beep, and "Found one!" 😂

I visited the Olive Oil Pantry before my adventure to get a special treat - a sample of Olivina to bring with me. The store is packed with fusti, along with jams, crackers, nuts, mustard, olives, various snacks, and even martini mix. Ohmy!

It was late in the day, maybe 30 minutes to closing, so the store was quiet and empty. I felt a bit self-conscious being the only customer, but the girl at the counter was helpful, kind, and went above and beyond to wrap my oils up in bubble wrap and a small bag... for bike transport!

While I do like driving, for anything within a 10 mile radius it is much more satisfying to be a bike adventurer. I think we sometimes get stuck in routines of traveling from box to box, and by way of a different kind of motorized box. Biking or walking allows you to slow down and notice the world. The "same" route is really never the same when you take it twice. You see the seasons change, and the passage of time reflected in the trees and sky. You notice when they have an entire crew out painting the most vibrant of lime green bike lanes, and antique cars hidden and parked beside houses. You notice the feeling of cold, sunshine and wet. Did you know that humans do not even have hygroreceptors? Our sense of wet is a perceptual illusion, or delusion if it is never realized, created by our brains. We combine sensory input from temperature (thermoreceptors) with touch (mechanoreceptors) to say, "I am cold, and this tactile feels a certain way, therefore I am wet." My treasures from this trip included the Olivina samples, along with a larger bottle, suggested by the girl in the store as her favorite. The larger bottle is made from Kalamata (black) olives, which is a first for me.

Olivina Orchards

Let us talk about Olivina! It is our local olive orchard. One of my favorite things to do is bike to Sycamore Grove, park my bike, and run. There is a nice place to lock a bike along with good bathroom facilities. If you take the main route, you will pass an old mill, and might miss a gated path up to the right to the Wagon Road Trail. This is my favorite place to go, as you typically will see cows, and few people. 

This picture has a lot. There are predominantly California Valley Oak trees in the foreground. These are the trees that often look like they are weeping or twisted, with branches reaching toward the ground like arms grasping for the earth. With the wind I have felt up there sometimes, I would not find it hard to imagine that they are. The middle section of the picture, beyond the gate, is a managed orchard. There is a running trail through it as well, and often I will see a bright orange strip to serve as a marker for work underway. In the background we can see those wind turbines! They often come paired with high-voltage transmission towers. I find them rather ugly, but there has to be something to transport the power from the wind farms to where it needs to be. I wonder if they could be underground? I had an very sweet interaction here when I was biking through once. A complete stranger stuck out his hand to give me a high five while I was biking by, and it was a wonderful moment of brief connection. ☺️

If you continue running, you will start to notice a change of scenery that includes a wire fence and olive trees. Is that... an olive orchard? Yes!

Keep going, and you will find the back gate to Olivina. I have peered around this gate many times, and it feels like this scene from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with predominantly a feeling of wonder.

Finally, if you run or bike around to Wetmore Road, you see what looks like a more formal entrance. I first saw this when i visited the area in March 2025 on a bike ride around Holdner Park. This picture was taken during my adventure this week.

The best part of this strip is that it is preceded and proceeded by hills. Given that you can bike up a relatively small hill to get to Holdner Park, you are generously rewarded. You can see this beautiful gate is front and center on their website. I also suggest taking a look at the black and white photos in their gallery.

Olivina Olive Oils

I purchased my large bottle at Gene's Fine Foods, and you can largely find Olivina sold at nice markets around the Bay Area. For a quick history, Julius Paul Smith established the estate in 1881. It served many uses in the early years, from wine, brandy and olive oil to even being a cattle ranch. In 1904 it was the largest wine producer in the region, but shifted to cattle. The property was purchased by the Crohare family in the 1940s, and it was transitioned back to olive oil production in 2001. The name is derived from a combination of olive and vine. The estate is 2,000 acres with about 11K trees, some over 100 years old. I thought it was interesting that the original trees came from cuttings taken from the Mission San Jose Church in Fremont, and likely transported by wagon. My favorite is by far the Arbequina. Unlike others that have a buttery taste, this one is light and fresh.

The bottle is beautiful. It is not as tall as Desert Miracle, but is elegant. I was thinking about people and bottles today, and realized that the concept of "beautiful" and "elegant" are subtly different. Elegance is not always beautiful, but it is something that we are drawn to, and admire. It is refined and cultivated, intelligent, and often more minimalist. It is the embodiment of grace and sophistication. Beauty is an immediate, aesthetic pleasure. It is more subjective, and often paired with societal stereotypes. An object that is beautiful is not always elegant. Someone that is elegant is not necessarily beautiful, but that suggests embodiment of something deeper. Beauty tends to fade with age, but elegance does not. I really like that.

The Cork

The Olivina bottle has a cork at the top, which makes it feel like you are opening a wine bottle. I learned recently that cork is not a man-made material. It comes from a tree! This entirely blew my mind. It would be akin to someone telling me that muffins come from muffin trees. I had no idea. It makes me appreciate the few corks I have from these bottles much more.

This EVOO is fresh, light, and without aftertaste. There is no taste of butter, and (for two samples now) no bitterness or peppery bite. It is gentle. For the larger bottle, it almost tastes like an apple jolly rancher was ever so lightly dipped into it. Mind you, this is my memory of the apple flavor from over 30 years ago, so I cannot guarantee accuracy. The gold sticker on the back declares the harvested date as December 2025 to January 2026. That completes our Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory comparison, because we have found the golden ticket. 🎫 What an adventure, and lovely week. I will surely be back, because it is one of my favorite places in Livermore.