After the olives the bottle and fire

Today I went in search of bottles; bottles for our 23 litres of olive oil that was largely stored in plastic jerry cans overnight and that we had been told to get out of the plastic in less than 24 hours because it would go bad.

So I went in search of bottles; having done the calculation that 23 litres equalled 30 75cl oil bottles.

The extra is the view looking down into the Casentino from the Consuma Pass. That's Poppi in the middle with the castle, the Arno valley before and behind, the house would be off somewhere to the right in the middle/near foreground. Not bad, eh?

To be honest, both The Boss and I were absolutely knackered. I took her down to work early, came back for a big caffeine hit, and then staggered off to find JR Vetro in Pelago.

It turned out that JR was not in Pelago and after a strange and circuitous route courtesy of Google Maps I arrived in the Arno valley on a straggly industrial estate selling used cars. JR Vetro was behind a gate and after ringing the bell I was granted entrance and drove in.

It was almost freezingly cold down in the valley. The nice chap who wandered out of the cavernous warehouse to greet me (they are always cavernous, no?) said it had gotten down to 1 degree early this morning.

I explained I was after thirty olive oil bottles and he showed me a couple of nice deep dark shaded green bottles. And the twist on caps to go with them. For €20 they were mine and I drove away feeling slightly lifted from my bone-shattering weariness.

I continued on my way out to the house in the most brilliant low sunshine, which is actually a real pain to drive in. I stopped to take a few photos of the smoke from the olive tree cuttings after the harvest hanging low in the valleys. It probably something to do with something like temperature inversion.

Later I did some more terrace clearing at the new house, discovered a new olive tree being smothered by oaks, and made the acquaintance of the LPG delivery man - that's for the barn not the house. But no-one uses it for heating any more as it is so expensive - everyone uses pellet stoves.

Later still I drove back and we bottled the oil. It was fairly straightforward although we couldn't really see straight. The bottleman had slipped in two extra bottles which was very prescient. We needed them.

So now we have 32 by 75cl bottles of the most beautiful oil grown on our doorstep, picked by ourselves and our friendly condominiumites and milled just a couple of miles away.

The oil has a pepperiness - pizzichino, I think - that will fade in a few days. But it has none of that harsh bitter aftertaste that so much olive oil has. And it is a deep lustrous green and smells fab.

We'll give a few bottles away and hoard the rest jealously.