THE MILL
MOLÍ DURAN
The mill is located in the municipality of Sant Martí de Maldà, in the region of l ’Urgell (province of Lleida), surrounded by the regions of the Garrigues, and the Conca de Barberà. It is a traditional oliaria amb llarga area. The dining camps that surround the terme donate to the country a silver tone that accentuates when the frequent vent snorts in these contrades
THE ARBEQUINA OLIVE
The Arbequina olive, which takes its name from the neighboring town of Arbeca (13 km away), is the main protagonist of our oil. They are small, rounded olives that give the oil a fruity taste with aromas of almonds and other fruits. They are not very bitter and rarely “sting”, they are not astringent but you can notice a great softness and delicacy.
The oil becomes harmonious, soft, light and even with a certain almond and fruity sweetness that transports to more exotic tastes. However, if the olives are harvested early, when they still retain some greenery, a bitter touch can be found, which slightly varies the organoleptic characteristics of the resulting oil.
In order to preserve all these properties, care must be taken in the process of making and preserving them, as these oils can be easily affected by oxidation. For this reason, they should always be kept away from heat and light sources.
OLIVE COLLECTION.
It all starts in the olive groves around the mill. There the trees grow in lands of dry land predominance, fact that conditions a lower production.
The best time to pick the olives, due to their degree of ripeness, would be between December and January. However, to obtain the gustatory and organoleptic characteristics of our oil, the harvest begins a little earlier in such a way that we take advantage of a certain degree of greenery of the olives to give new colors to the oil.
The harvesting process is manual, dropping the olives from the trees to the ground before the moment they would fall by themselves. Networks are spread on the ground that accumulate the olives until they are finally poured into the cart or the boxes that will move them to the mill. Always try to move the olives to the mill as quickly as possible, so that their acidity will be lower.
To achieve this, the wineries of the DO We work daily so that activities or development do not cause lasting damage to the biosphere or particular ecosystems and study how to introduce those techniques that provide advantages in soil conservation and improvement, soil management vegetation, pest control (study of the effects of insecticides on insects with the aim of not adversely affecting insects beneficial to the vine and conserving natural resources to the maximum), irrigation (in order to conserve water and improve the quality).
Thus, at Celler Petit Duran we can ensure that we are 100% ecological and with the methodology of manual harvests we contribute to the land receiving the love of man who during its collection selects and interacts with the land in a way that no harvesting machine will ever be able to offer.
OIL EXTRACTION
The olives arrive at the mill where they are weighed, separated from the leaf by natural methods and enter the oil production chain. They are moved to the top of the grinding stones and gradually fall off. In this way a homogeneous mass is obtained where we find the olive meat. The stone is already partly separated, as it is not affected by the pressure of the presses. This dough is just homogenized and then passed through a rotary machine, from where the first drops of oil flow.
Finally, this dough is placed manually inside the sports. These are stacked on top of each other and once you have a tower, they are put in the press.
The oil extracted by the pressure of the mass inside the sports contains a part of vegetable water from the olive itself that is left to rest in the tanks where the two layers are separated by difference in density and stored in optimal storage conditions.