This is an archived edition of our Field Report email newsletter. You can sign up at the bottom of the page!
Greetings from Fat Gold!
We’re writing to tell you that we have more slots available in our annual subscription program… and the next batch goes out in September!
Whether you’d like to get a year of extra virgin olive oil for a loved one or yourself, you can start here:
As a reward for following along with our Field Report, you can use the coupon code FABULOUS (for a subscription for yourself) or FABULOUSGIFT (for a gift subscription) to get $10 off.
A subscription is four 500 ml tins, each oil made from a different olive variety, each packaged with an informative zine and labeled with a magnet that you can keep and save, if you wish.
If you already have an annual subscription, you don’t have to do anything; this only applies to folks NOT already subscribed, who have been waiting to come aboard.
Now, let us tell you about the oil we’re sending next month. It’s a story which happens to encapsulate our whole approach.
Rewind to our 2022 harvest. It’s mid-November. We’ve finished nearly all of our production for the year, and we are feeling pretty smug about it.
Kathryn gets a call from an olive milling friend, someone we’ve worked with in the past. He just milled some terrific oil from a batch of favolosa olives—a variety new to us—and heard from the farmer that there is still fruit left in the grove. Might Kathryn be interested in purchasing it?
This season, we’ve been collaborating with the great olive miller (and coffee roaster) Patrick Martin at Frantoio Grove, so Kathryn discusses the offer with him. Patrick drives up to see the grove; he cultivates a big spread of his own, so he’s a good judge. His report: the olives look great! We agree to buy the fruit together and split the oil.
Snap back to 2023: it’s this oil that we’ll be sending exclusively to our subscribers in September.
Why is this batch emblematic of Fat Gold’s approach?
First: the olive variety is unusual. We produce our flagship offerings, Fat Gold Standard and Fat Gold Blue, from the same varieties every year. (They’re good varieties!) But we also make many of these special one-time batches, and these, we send straight to our subscribers.
Second: the opportunity was unexpected. Olive sourcing is, by its nature—by the power of nature itself—unpredictable. Harvest season is short, 6 to 8 weeks, and every producer is scrambling at the same time. One year, a grove will have tons of olives to sell; another year, it won’t have any crop at all; yet another year, someone else will beat us to the fruit! Olive oil production in California is collegial and cooperative… even so, you can’t always get what you want.
Therefore, improvisation is required: quick decisions, logistical gambits. If that sounds kinda fun: it is! Any of you who have been following along for a while know Fat Gold is nothing if not scrappy.
Third: the amount of olives available was, in the grand scheme of things, pretty small. A six-ton harvest—a single day of milling—doesn’t make sense for an olive oil producer who sells mainly to big grocery stores. But, it’s the perfect size for one (1) batch for our subscribers.
It’s a neat fit: unusual varieties, when we can find them, tend to be planted in smaller quantities… and smaller quantities can supply our subscribers, who love to try unusual varieties!
When it works, it really works.
In fact, here’s the full list of ALL the olive varieties we’ve sent to subscribers over the years:
- frantoio: bold and peppery
- arbequina: fruity and aromatic
- picual: bold and fruity
- koroneiki: sweet and delicate
- leccino: bold and peppery
- maurino: bold and herbaceous
- taggiasca: bold and herbaceous
- moraiolo: green and grassy
- hojiblanca: fruity and fragrant
- picudo: bold and peppery
- coratina: big and bold
- picholine: aromatic and herbaceous
- mission: herbaceous and peppery
- arbosana: fruity and grassy
To which we’ll soon add:
- favolosa: well… it means “fabulous” in Italian, and we’ll send subscribers more info about this variety, and how best to use it, in the zine that accompanies the September batch.
It feels great to have produced and shared so many different varieties, all different in flavor and aroma, not to mention history and cultivation. And there are olives yet to discover! It’s more and more challenging to find a variety we haven’t milled before, but you can be sure that when Kathryn gets the call… we’ll pounce.
That’s it for this edition of the Field Report. Again, if you’re interested in claiming a slot in our annual subscription program, you can start here:
You can use the coupon code FABULOUS (for a subscription for yourself) or FABULOUSGIFT (for a gift subscription) to get $10 off.
This next batch goes out in the second week of September, so you and/or your gift recipient won’t have long to wait.
Thanks, as always, for following along!
—Robin, Kathryn, and Bryan