Blue Earth Olive Oil wins international gold

We already know that Martinborough produces great wines.  Now we also have evidence that it produces great olive oil.  Blue Earth Olive Oil was awarded a gold medal for their Tuscan blend this week at the New York International Olive Oil Competition. Blue Earth Olive Oil was one of two New Zealand olive oils that were awarded gold medals this week.  They were joined by another Wairarapa oil, Juno Olives Picual.

The New York International Olive Oil Competition is the world’s largest and most prestigious olive oil quality contest. Over the course of four days this week, an esteemed international panel of expert olive oil tasters evaluated a collection of 651 oils from an entry of 1,000 from 25 countries among 24 categories.

Mike and Margaret Hanson began planting their olive grove on an old river terrace on White Rock Rd in 1998.  They now have approximately 1100 trees that sit around their vineyard. “The stony soils and gentle north facing slope make it a great place to grow olives” explains Margaret Hanson. “Even the wind helps by minimising disease, although it does mean that the trees only grow on one side for the first seven or eight years.”

It is called Blue Earth as an affectionate and ironic nod to Mike’s home town of Blue Earth in Minnesota, USA.  Mike comes from a farm where the soil is so deep and black that when you turn it with a plough is looks blue.  When Mike’s father asked him about the land he had bought near Martinborough, he was almost embarrassed to admit that it had almost no top soil and was filled with stones.  No Blue Earth farmer would ever consider farming it.