In Victoria, Taralinga Estate Celebrates Tradition While Embracing Innovation

Located on the Mornington Peninsula in the south­ern Australian state of Victoria is the Taralinga Estate.

Home to 2,350 olive trees, Taralinga Estate is the pri­vate olive grove of the Italian-born real estate bil­lion­aire Salvatore (Sam) Tarascio.

Over the years, Tarascio has applied his pas­sion to pro­duce some of the high­est-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil in the world.

He estab­lished the busi­ness in 2015 to honor his Italian fam­ily, who pro­duced olive oil in Sicily.

“Olive oil runs through the Tarascio family’s veins, and Taralinga Estate embod­ies the pas­sion for excel­lence my fam­ily has had for more than a cen­tury since pro­duc­ing pre­mium olive oil back in our home­town of Vizzini, Sicily,” Tarascio told Olive Oil Times.

He chose the Mornington Peninsula, located south of Melbourne, due to its ideal micro­cli­mate for olive trees.

“The Mornington Peninsula fea­tures rich vol­canic soils, mak­ing it ideal for grow­ing all kinds of qual­ity food and wine,” he said.

The penin­sula is also known for its cool win­ters and dry sum­mers, mak­ing it even more suit­able for grow­ing olive trees.

Along with the ideal cli­mate, Karen Godfrey, the company’s mar­ket­ing man­ager, told Olive Oil Times that main­tain­ing the olive trees is a year-long process and has helped drive the company’s suc­cess.

“Taralinga Estate offers a unique com­bi­na­tion of pre­mium qual­ity olive trees that thrive in the idyl­lic cli­mate of the Mornington Peninsula and are excep­tion­ally main­tained all year round,” Godfrey said.

“Our typ­i­cal main­te­nance includes fer­til­izer, water and prun­ing to main­tain the shape and health of the tree,” she added. ​“We also con­stantly mon­i­tor the soil to ensure that noth­ing is com­pro­mised when it comes to their qual­ity stan­dards.”

This hard work and care­ful atten­tion to detail cul­mi­nated in two Gold Awards and a Silver Award at the 2021 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition for a mono­va­ri­etal and two blends.

Taralinga Estate also earned two Gold Awards at the pre­vi­ous edi­tion of the com­pe­ti­tion for the same mono­va­ri­etal and one of the blends.

Despite olive farm­ing roots that date back to 1930 when Tarascio’s grand­fa­ther first pressed olives back in Sicily, Taralinga Estate boasts a diverse and global array of olive vari­eties. The company’s mono­va­ri­etal is made from Picual olives, while its blends include Koroneiki, Frantoio and Hojiblanca olives.

The har­vest­ing process at Taralinga Estate typ­i­cally begins in May. According to Godfrey, this ensures that the olives have the high­est level of polyphe­nols, which are potent antiox­i­dants respon­si­ble for some of the oil’s health ben­e­fits.

The next step is to crush the olives, which takes place imme­di­ately after har­vest­ing at the company’s mill to con­serve their fresh­ness.

Godfrey said Taralinga Estate never com­pro­mises on the qual­ity of its oil, which is why they invested in state-of-the-art milling equip­ment from Italy.

“The Italian-made tech­nol­ogy allows Taralinga Estate to process olives for up to four dif­fer­ent clients at one time with a con­tin­u­ous process sys­tem,” she said.

Godfrey added that the com­pany was doing much bet­ter after the adver­sity cre­ated by the Covid-19 pan­demic. However, she said that man­ag­ing expenses have become a new chal­lenge for Taralinga due to high equip­ment and labor costs.

Nonetheless, Taralinga Estate has for­mu­lated dif­fer­ent strate­gies to man­age their cost, such as invest­ing in har­vesters.

“When Covid hit in 2020, we had to min­i­mize the num­ber of staff at the grove and so out­sourced our pick­ing using a machine har­vester,” Godfrey said. ​“After expe­ri­enc­ing the effi­ciency of this, we decided to invest in our own har­vester, which was used for the first time in 2021.”

She added that 2021 has brought a ray of hope for the busi­ness. The coun­try is steadily rolling back the strict mea­sures imposed to curb the pan­demic, and Godfrey looks for­ward to another pros­per­ous year in 2022.

“Our 2021 har­vest results are back to where they were pre-Covid, which is great,” she said. ​“Our 2021 har­vest was almost dou­ble our 2020 har­vest, which we’re thrilled about.”

Despite ris­ing pro­duc­tion, Godfrey added that the com­pany would never put qual­ity in jeop­ardy.

“As demand is grow­ing for Taralinga Estate extra vir­gin olive oil, we may need to look beyond our own grove for fruit,” she said. ​“The fruit we use will always be from the Mornington Peninsula as the prove­nance is impor­tant for our brand equity and the qual­ity of our extra vir­gin olive oil.”

Godfrey con­cluded that the com­pany intended to prove its qual­ity once again, announc­ing that they would enter their extra vir­gin olive oils into the 2022 NYIOOC.