Well I seemed to have pulled it off!!
And just remember I can barely speak the language and when I do speak it it is all mangled. But I do understand almost always what I am hearing. So any way I have 2 mills now literally sucking my you know what trying to beat the other mill and to please me. I was very sensitive to the fact that if I did this wrong they both would be p*ssed off at me and neither one would take any care at all of our olives. I really was worried that int he end neither one of them would want to "deal" with me. I handled all my conversations with this in mind and in the end they are kind of fighting over us, he-he-he as Eddie Walker would say.
Saturday morning I went to our old mill and the moulinere canme out to talk to me. The first thing I did was open up a tank and stick my finger in and taste it, um-um it was good. The we talked yields and he said he didn't knwo the yields but the quantities were clearly marked on the tanks so I could figure that out on my own. My old mill, so aggravating closes at noon then re-opens at 3pm. This is really inconvenient. So first thing Saturday morning I picked up the oil from the old mill, and took it home. I used a hand pump and pumped it into our stainless steel tanks in our basement. Then I tapped a 1/4 iter small bottle and marked it number 3. When I did the calculations our old mill provided a yield of 13.99% by weight of the oil Then I hand cranked out some oil form the new mills first batch at a 10% yield and labeled that bottle number 1. Then I hand cranked out a bottle from batch number 2 of our new mill at 12.5% yield and labeld that bottle #2. Then I put my nad pump, an extra bottle and a funnel in the small car and drove over to the new mill.
The father waved to me as I drove in and I KNOW he noticed I was in the small car and did not have olives with me. I was all set to crank out bottle number 4 from last nights pressing and see how it went. So I go in and go to where my tanks of oil should be and they are empty. I go outside and look at our 1,000 liter tank and there is no change. So now I look for Christine the Mill manager. She sadly tells me that her husband did not press our olives last night. She was ticked off and said her husband was not respecting her planning and she showed me the lsit she left him and we were on the list. So I look at her and say, "Well from the exact same trees I brought you 2 pallet boxes of olives and I took 2 pallet boxes over to our old mill. I have the oil from our old mill and we got 13.99% yield. Before I bring you any more olives I want to know what my yield will be on these specific olives so I can compare." She again says she is sorry they were not pressed, so i ask, "Well can you press them right now? I cna't bring you any more olives until I see what the yield is on the 2 pallets from yesterday." To my amazement she hopes on her lift truck and pulls in my 2 pallets of olives and the workers immediatly dump them and the milling process begins.
I wait for no customers to be in the mill and have her try bottle numbers 1,2 and 3. Bottles 1 & 2 were from her mill bottle number 3 is from our old mill. Well as it turns out she also had to agree that bottle number 3 had the best flavor additionally it had the highest yield. I told her that i was waiting to decide where I should bring my olives and when they were done pressing to call me with the yield and I left. The really really good thing is she totally understood she was not angry with me at all. Not at all and that is what I wanted. I really really can't stand the manager at our old mill and only wanted them to provide very close to what I could get at my old mill adn really I wanted to stay with them.
BUT I had olives in cases, I ahd no numbers form my current mill so when I got home I started hauling olives to our old mill. I did not have time to wait fro the current mills yield. Finally while I was out hauling olives about 7pm she called and talked to my hsuband and said that they got a yield of 15.5% but the flavor was not the same, the flavor was not as good as our old mill. She was "man" or "woman" enough if you will, to admit it. The difference in flavor is very very small and you would really have to be an expert to find it but both she and I knew it. The normal consumer would not know why but they would prefer the flavor from our old mill. It is very small but it is there. What it is is that the flavor form our old mill is more aromatic and less vegetal. Not much but it is there.
So Saturday night I knew it was going to happen, I run into the manager I really detest at the old mill and he rightfully gives me the cold shoulder which is what I was expectiong. i told him I wanted Norbert to press our olives and he said that wouldn't be until Monday. When you pick on Saturday is
okay to press on Monday but getting them pressed Saturday night or Sunday is a lot better. So I ask him if closing is really exactly at 7pm since I ahve another round trip to make. He is giving me the cold shoulder and says, "Well 5 minutes after 7 but that is it!" I drive home quick but safe and thenkfully my husband is outside right by the olvies so he loads them real quick and I made it back to the mill by 7:03.
Now Sunday we bring back 3 more pallet boxes of olives and today I get a big surprise. The manger who I absolutly detest is sucking my backside big time. As soon as I pull up he tells me, "Your oil will be done in 8 minutes." Yesterday he told me they would not press our saturday olives until Monday and I show up Sunday night at 5pm and our oil is done. Now he is into the game, now he wants to beat the other mill. He askes me what their yields were and I tell him. So then we calcualte the yields from the oil in front of me and it comes out at 15.8% even better than Fridays pressing.
I was really honest with him when I say him Saturday night, I told him, "Olivier it is really hard for me to come back here, really hard. But I got such poor yields at our other mill that I had to compare and I ahve to admit the yield is much higher here and the flavor is better" So Sunday he is like my new best friend. Really I can't stand the guy but you know what when it comes to our oil I can suck it up and do what I need to have the best oil. If it takes going back to our old mill on my knees I'll do it. I don't like doing it but I am not going to let my pride become more important than producing the best oil. My husband and I work all year for this moment and we cna't afford to turn in great olives to a mill and get back ordinary oil. It is crazy with the storage because our big 1,000 tank is at our current mill and I'm taking the olvies now to our old mill and hauling it home in 60 liter tanks. Soon we will run out of storage in our home stainless steel tanks and I'll ahve to make sure we have enough 60 liter tanks to hold it all. One thing I won't do is mix these two oils. The best Bouteillan is going to be tottled and sold as pure Bouteillan, the very slightly (and honestly on a scale of 1 to ten we are talking about .5 in difference) lesser grade Bouteillan we will put in our blended oil. There the flavors are blended so this very small difference won't really affect the blend, but on a pure varietal I could taste it.
Our current mill understand that I am going to our old mill and she is okay with that and is not bearing any kind of grudge. I am welcome back there any time, they want us back. For the Aglandau without telling our current mill, my first load of Aglandau when we pick it late this week I am going to take to our old mill and get the flavor and the yield. Then I am going to take a full load to our current mill anc check them out also but I am not going to be telling them. If I did that I am afraid then I would really have and enemy. I do it on the sly. Our 1,000 liter storage tank for our Aglandau is at our current mill and this olive presses real good and is not near as "fussy" as the grosanne nor the Bouteillan so baring any huge surprises I will go back to them probably.
I can't take this much drama. We have so much going on on our end jsut picking the fruit, getting everybody fed and a bed and keeping enough food in the house is more than we can handle. it seems like all I do is go to the mill and stop at the grocery store, wake up and repeat. Then at night there is the selling of the USA restaurant going on, this little diversion where I can get it out on TBN is what cools me down at the end of the night. I gotta go no though. My dad needs his eye drops and he is well enough to start working in the fields again tomorrow. He is VERY happy he can do some harvest work. Sweeping the floors and cleaning our tanks is not the same as beign out int he field and working with the crew, that is what he lives for all year long. This makes his year when he can come and actually work on the harvest. My dad needs his eye drops so that is it for me for the night. Oh but that Bouteillan olive oil, lip smack, yum yum it is GREAT! Now that is what puts a smile on my face. it makes my job of sales 1,000 times easier when we make oil like we are currently amking. The oil practically sells itself.
