PHOENICIAN OLIVE OIL

Arizona is the unlikely base for this relatively new company which presses and packages extra-virgin olive oilfrom olives grown on the Gila River Indian Community Reservation in the North Sonoran Desert, 20 miles south of Phoenix.

The project started in the late 19805 when the Indian. Community agreed to plant aoo Manzanillo olive trees a year as part of their farming programme.

The first olives came on stream in sufficient quantities to press in 1994.

The olives are harvested by hand between September and December. They then go to the Phoenician Olive Oil Company's mill on site where the oil is extracted using a cold centrifugal process.

When it is fresh the oil has a very attractive grassy, grated-apple aroma. The flavour, too, is grassy with a touch of woody bitterness on the aftertaste. It is not very peppery.

This company also produces oil from Pendolino olives at Caborca in Mexico. This oil is not as good as the Gila River oil.