No mechanical tree shakers here. The only nod to the 21st Century is the occasional hand-held electric harvester - but more often than not it's a plastic rake or bare hands.
Harvesting olives in rural Umbria is human-intensive - one reason why hereabouts is renown for probably the best extra-virgin olive oil in the country.
For those with olive trees it's a time for roping in anyone possible to help with the harvest: friends, friends-of-friends, relatives, relatives-of-relatives, visitors, passers-by ... the willing and the unwilling. For those (like me) without trees, it's a time when you discover just how many friends you have - and how far-flung your family tree!
But when you make your choices - and decide who you're going to harvest for - there's nothing quite as zen-like as hand-picking olives, seeing them drop into the nets, the air saturated with the aroma of the harvest being crushed in the surrounding mills.
It is intoxicating - the rhythm of work, the sense of community, the celebration of the 'new oil'. Sound just impossibly romantic? Probably is - but romance of any kind is a fading commodity in this world, so I tend to seize whatever embers I can and fan them fully aflame.
The olive harvest - at its best - happens under the crisp brilliance of autumnal Umbrian days, punctuated by a compulsory lazy lunch, usually drenched with red wine and the 'new oil' - freshly-pressed, vivid green and peppery - drizzled onto warm toasted garlic-rubbed bruschetta.
It's as though - despite the trappings of modernity - you're participating in an ancient human rite, tapping a tree that has existed since time immemorial ... drawing oil from a fruit that has sustained Man across the epochs of humanity.
Take a few days, sometime in your life, and join us for the harvest. I promise you'll lack neither opportunity nor new friends - and in the Italian way, bond these new friendships with an oil of unmatched extra-virginity.
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