The Grape & the Olive:
Bringing Home the Romance of Vineyard and Grove
For the gardener, romantic, and foodie in all of us, this seminar celebrates the history, cultivation, beauty, and savor of grapes and olives. Evocative of passion and revelry as well as a healthy lifestyle, grapes and olives bring to mind tantalizing images of both sophisticated society and the rustic pastoral life. Their rich cultural heritage, dating back thousands of years, continues to charm and fascinate us, while modern grape and olive growing also addresses sustainability and recognizes their potential as design elements, especially as they step from commercial farms to the home landscape. In a famous quote, often attributed to Greek historian Thucydides, grapes and olives might even mark the portal to civilization: “The people of the Mediterranean began to emerge from barbarism when they learnt to cultivate the olive and the vine.”
This event is produced with support from the Garden Conservancy’s George W. Rowe Education Fund.
Co-Sponsors
Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, UC Davis
Date and time
Friday, April 12, 2013
8:30 a.m.- 4:45 p.m.
Location
The Golden Gate Club
The Presidio, San Francisco
Agenda
8:30 a.m. Check-in and registration
9:00 Welcome
9:15-4:30 p.m. Lectures, lunch, book signings
4:30 Closing remarks
Speakers and topics
Patrick Hunt “Grape and Olive: Gifts from Bacchus and Athena”
Carol Drinkwater “Romancing the Olive”
Fran Gage and Dan Flynn “Olive Oil: Savor and Chemistry”
Tom Powers “Grapes in the Backyard: Worth the Effort”
Kelly Mulville “Returning Nature to Viticulture”
Ive Haugeland “Where Agriculture Meets Art: The Olive and Grape in Landscape Design”
Colby Eierman “Vineyard and Olive Grove Remix”
Registration
$75 Members of the Garden Conservancy, Pacific Horticulture Society, and California Olive Oil Council
$95 General admission
For information on student discounts, please call the Garden Conservancy in San Francisco at 415.441.4300.
or by calling the Garden Conservancy in San Francisco at 415.441.4300.
Anglo-Irish actress Carol Drinkwater is perhaps most familiar to audiences for her award-winning portrayal of Helen Herriot in the BBC series All Creatures Great and Small. A popular and acclaimed author and film-maker as well, Carol has published nineteen books. When she and her husband Michel purchased a rundown property overlooking the Bay of Cannes, France, they discovered sixty-eight, 400-year-old olive trees. Once the land was reclaimed and the olives gathered and pressed, Carol and Michel became the producers of top quality olive oil, and their farm has since gained an AOC (Appellation d’Origine Controllee). Her series of memoirs about her experiences (The Olive Farm, The Olive Season, The Olive Harvest, and Return to the Olive Farm) have become best sellers in the U.S. and abroad. Carol’s fascination with the olive tree extended to a solo seventeen-month Mediterranean journey in search of its mythical secrets. The resulting travel books, The Olive Route and The Olive Tree, have inspired a recently completed five-part documentary film series entitled The Olive Route. Carol has also been invited to work with UNESCO to help found an Olive Heritage Trail around the Mediterranean Basin, with the dual goals of creating peace in the region and honoring the ancient heritage of the olive tree. The stories, history, and people who have the olive and its cultivation at the heart of their lives are the subject of Carol’s talk, as well as her battle to transform the Provence farm into a successful organic enterprise. caroldrinkwater.com
Patrick Hunt has been teaching humanities, archaeology, mythology, and fine arts at Stanford University for the past 20 years. Holding a Ph.D. from the Institute of Archaeology at University College London, he is a national lecturer for the Archaeological Institute of America and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. The National Geographic Society has sponsored some of his archaeological fieldwork. Also a research associate in archaeoethnobotany at the Institute for Ethnomedicine, he studies uses of ancient plants. His twelve published books include the bestselling Ten Discoveries That Rewrote History (2007), now published in five languages, and Wine Journeys: Myth & History (2012). He also has a forthcoming book, Gardens of the Ancient World. Patrick appears regularly in documentaries on the National Geographic Channel, PBS, and the History Channel, most recently in Mankind: The Story of All of Us.
Dan Flynn is the executive director of the UC Davis Olive Center, having managed the university’s olive oil program since 2006. Spearheading and coordinating the combined efforts of an interdepartmental team of UC faculty, extension research specialists, and farm advisors, Dan promotes olive research and education and offers technical support to olive oil producers. Part of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, the Olive Center is the first of its kind, and seeks to do for California’s burgeoning olive oil industry what UC Davis has already done for wine. Dan also oversees olive oil production for UC Davis, including harvesting, milling, and marketing. Previously Dan served as a consultant to the California State Legislature from 1985 to 2004 in a variety of policy areas and is the former owner and manager of an organic farm in the Sierra foothills.
Fran Gage owned the critically acclaimed bakery, Fran Gage Patisserie Francaise, in San Francisco for ten years. Following a bakery fire in 1995, Fran turned to writing about food, including articles for local and national publications, and six books. Her latest, The New American Olive Oil: Profiles of Artisan Producers and 75 Recipes (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2009), is the first book to focus on America’s artisanal olive oil producers. It includes recipes, tips for choosing and storing extra-virgin olive oils, understanding the basic types of olive oils, and even how to host a tasting. Fran tastes olive oil for three panels: with the University of California’s Continuing Education department, the UC-Davis Olive Center, and the California Olive Oil Council. She is also a judge at olive oil competitions. In her tandem lecture with Dan Flynn, Fran will cover the sensory evaluation of olive oil, using olive oil in the kitchen, the three styles of extra-virgin olive oil, how to match them to recipes, and substituting olive oil for other fats in baking.
Tom Powers is author of The Organic Backyard Vineyard (Timber Press, 2012) which features everything a wine lover needs to build and care for a home vineyard. Updated from his self-published version, this edition includes organic growing information and new photography. Tom operates Alhambra Valley Ranch, a fifty-eight-acre sustainable family farm in western Contra Costa County, California. It produces grapes for wine, olives for oil and curing, and summer vegetables (including the best-tasting ‘Cherokee Purple’ heirloom tomatoes in the world). He has planted hundreds of backyard vineyards, including many in the Bay Area, pointing out that several hundred bottles of wine a year can be produced with just a few rows of vines. If you just want grapes for eating, all you need is a grapevine on an arbor or fence. In 2005 Tom started a small commercial winery on his farm. His varietal wines and blends are sold directly to friends, neighbors, stores, and restaurants.
After completing studies in Ecological Horticulture at the University of California-Santa Cruz and Holistic Management with African ecologist Allan Savory, Kelly Mulville went on to manage farms, ranches, and vineyards throughout the western U.S., including in Arizona, Colorado, and California, and he has consulted and lectured on holistic viticulture in the U.S., Spain, Australia, New Zealand, and China. Kelly believes that by using nature as context and inspiration, viticulture can become more resilient, elegant, and profitable while creating numerous unexpected positive benefits. This approach includes designing new properties as well as transforming existing vineyards, farms, and ranches for long-term economically, ecologically, and socially sound management. Some of Kelly’s “tools” are sheep, geese, and cattle rather than herbicides for vegetation control; Belgian draft horses in lieu of tractors; and solar power.
Colby Eierman has years of experience working with wineries, restaurants, and individuals to create landscapes that are both beautiful and productive, including Benziger Family Winery where he was director of sustainable agriculture, and COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food, and the Arts as director of gardens. His Napa-based firm, Eierman Consulting and Design, specializes in sustainable food production. Author of Fruit Trees in Small spaces: Abundant Harvests from Your Own Backyard (Timber Press, 2012), Colby’s work has been featured in numerous publications, as well as on television. He is also the horticulturist at Stone Edge Farm in Sonoma, a private estate designed by landscape architect Andrea Cochran that combines modern architecture and sustainable agriculture, including olives, honey, vegetables, fruits, and wine grapes for the farm’s own cabernet sauvignon label.
Ive Haugeland grew up in Norway, graduating from the Agricultural University of Norway with a Master’s in Landscape Architecture in 1995. She began her career at an award-winning Norwegian landscape design firm where she worked as a project manager and lead designer on both public and commercial projects. Ive moved to California in 2000 and after working for a local landscape architecture firm as a designer and project manager, she received her LA license and started her own firm, Shades of Green Landscape Architecture, in 2004. Ive has translated her Norwegian style to the States and illustrates this modern simplicity in her creative work. Inspirations include nature, fashion, and the Scandinavian design aesthetic. Shades of Green has grown to an eight-person firm with projects ranging from residential and commercial work to hospitality and temporary installations, all the while committed to sustainable practices.
Cosponsors:
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
 |
