How cool....wish we were there! It's always a wonderful place to visit. It sounds like you'll only be able to buy the olive oil on the estate. I wonder fi it will be ready when we are there in November. I don't know a lot about the production of olive oil.
From Sunnylands:
Sunnylands reopens in September with an invitation to the community to spend a morning on the historic Annenberg estate to harvest some of the 600 olive trees on the property.
From Sunnylands:
Sunnylands reopens in September with an invitation to the community to spend a morning on the historic Annenberg estate to harvest some of the 600 olive trees on the property.
On both Wednesday, Sept. 11, and Thursday, Sept. 12, as many as 100 volunteers will be allowed to drive onto the former winter home of Walter and Leonore Annenberg in Rancho Mirage to gather a crop of olives that will be used to produce Sunnylands Olive Oil.
This is the second time the public is being invited to take part in the olive harvest. The first was in 2014, the year the olive oil program was launched.
“We’re so excited to welcome the public back to the estate and into the process of making a Sunnylands product that will end up on people’s kitchen shelves and dining room tables,” said Michaeleen Gallagher, director of education and environmental programs.
The program is a result of various sustainability efforts the estate has undertaken since it opened as a high-level retreat center focused on societal issues in 2012. For decades, fruiting suppressants were applied to olive trees on the 200-acre estate. But the practice has since come to an end after the trees were first allowed to fruit five years ago. Once bottled, Sunnylands Olive Oil will be available to the public at the Sunnylands gift shop.
The 600-plus olive trees that dot the estate grounds were not fruit bearing until after the Annenbergs died."
